Spine
by Spoiled Rotten Princess Kitty
Summary: AU. "You have five unread messages!" a cheerful prompt tells me before I can even get to my inbox. I'm too annoyed right now to deal with this. With Christian and his issues. I don't want to deal with this right now. Or maybe ever, whispers a small voice in the back of my head. That voice sounds oddly seductive to me right now. Ana/Male OC
1. Chapter 1

Basically, this is what happens when I'm frustrated with something that I'm reading and the piss-poor choices that a character makes.

As usual, this is unedited, but please let me know if there's any glaring grammatical mistakes.

Please enjoy, and if you really liked it, I would love a review.

* * *

With sleep-filled eyes, I get up and go over to the computer to check my email. I don't know how that it's become such a habit in the few days since Christian gave it to me.

"You have five unread messages!" a cheerful prompt tells me before I can even get to my inbox. Holy crap! Since the email address is brand new, thanks to the man who gave me the laptop, I know that those five emails can only be from one person.

I'm too annoyed right now to deal with this. With him and his… well, whatever the fuck his problem is. His issues, I guess. I don't want to deal with this right now.

Or maybe ever, whispers a small voice in the back of my head. That voice sounds oddly seductive to me right now.

Ana, Christian is the only man that you have ever been attracted to! Exclaims my inner goddess. Do you want to be old and alone, except for your fifteen cats?

Oh, come on, whispers the new part of my mind. It's not like Christian's the only guy in the world. And it's not exactly like you were actively looking for romance, either.

"Yes," I whisper to myself. This new part of my mind is right. There are other guys out there.

But Christian Grey wants you! My inner goddess chimes up.

What about Paul? And Jose?

Oh, come on! Jose is like a little brother, and you know it! Inner goddess says with a roll of her eyes. She isn't happy with the new voice inside of me.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that other men don't find you attractive, Ana. I look at my reflection in the mirror. I mean, look at that, girl! I know that you're no Katherine Kavanagh, but you are beautiful in your own way.

"You know what? I am pretty. I don't need to set myself to unachievable goals in beauty."

Damn right, you don't!

I'm broken from my conversation with the new-found voice inside of my head by my cell phone ringing. I leave the bathroom and go over to my night-stand where I left my phone. Crap; it's Christian. What do I do?

Ignore him, hon, says the new voice in my head. You are strong and in charge of your own life. You don't need a man to tell you how you should give him pleasure, sir.

With new-found resolve, I press the red reject button before I toss my phone onto my bed and decide that I need to get dressed for the day. Before I've pulled a blouse on over my head, my phone chirps with a new text.

"Ana, answer your emails." Oh no, he sounds really angry. A second text comes in before the voices in my head can even come up with a response. "And don't ignore my calls!"

Tell him to piss off, suggests the new voice in my head.

No! Don't do that! Then you'll never see him again! Screams my inner goddess.

But don't you remember when you emailed Christian that it was nice to know him? Whispers my subconscious.

No, Ana, whispers new voice. This guy is a creep, and you don't even want to do any of that stuff. Why do you continue to string him along when you made up your mind almost as soon as you saw his Red Room of Pain?

The voice was right. I had made up my mind. Just because I was exceptionally sexually attracted to Grey and he appeared to be the only guy that I'd ever felt like this doesn't mean that I should change who I am just to remain with him.

And not only to change who I am, but to put myself through things that, deep down, I know that I wouldn't like to do.

I shivered as I remembered the flogger.

But, what should I tell him? The last time that I told Grey, jokingly or not, that I was breaking up with him, he came over and we had sex.

You need to tell him that it's over. And not via email, either, hon, said new voice. You need to call him.

But what if he comes over?

If that happens, then we'll deal with it, says new voice.

During my inner musings, I had revived seven new texts, all from Grey. You need to call him RIGHT NOW, insists new voice. This guy is turning into the male version of the obsessed girlfriend meme. It's funny on memebase; not so much when you're the object of the creep's affections.

I picked up the phone and pressed the redial button. Christian answered before the phone had rung once; he must have been waiting for my call. Gods, this guy was a complete creep.

"Ana," Christian breathed. "Why haven't you answered any of my emails, texts, or calls? I've been worried about you!"

"Christian, this isn't working out," I find myself saying.

"What?" Christian says. I think that I hear a door being closed on the other end of the line. Oh no, is he leaving the hotel to come to me? "What is this about, Ana?"

"Christian, you are nothing but a complete creep." I don't even feel like myself right now. I start to pack some things into a purse as I talk. "You've been harassing me with emails and phone calls and text messages almost non-stop. And it has to stop. Actually, we… whatever 'we' are, has to stop."

"I don't understand what you're saying, Ana." I hear a faint ding in the background; he's riding the elevator down. I head out to the living room.

"Let's face it, Christian. I'm no sub, and I have no interest in being one. And I have no interest in anything that you've offered me so far."

"Ana, we can work this out, please."

"No, Christian. It's over. Good bye." I snap my phone closed, toss it onto the couch, and head out the door. I feel empowered. Bold. Like I could do anything right now.

I get into Wanda and drive off. I won't be here when Christian comes around.

* * *

The only problem is that I don't know where I want to go. I know that I probably shouldn't go back to the apartment for some time; after all, Christian could linger around the apartment.

If he does, you should call the police. That guy has already proven that he is dangerous, whispers new voice. Subconscious and inner goddess are oddly silent.

But, where should I go? Work?

He knows where you work. Like some sort of stalker, new voice reminds me. I remember how he tracked me down at the bar by illegally tracking my phone, but I smile with glee as I recall how I left my phone in the apartment. Kate can deal with him, and she'll hopefully send him packing.

I get onto the freeway to take me to Seattle. I worry for a fraction of a second that Christian Grey will somehow find me there, but then I remember that there are millions of people who live in the city, and with my phone at home and Christian on his way to the apartment, there's almost no way that he'll track me down.

It's a nice day, so I roll down the windows, and turn on the radio. Somehow, I no longer feel like classical music, so I fiddle with the dial until I pick out Dee Snyder telling me that he's not going to take it anymore. The song was oddly fitting.

* * *

I drove until I reached Seattle, but now that I was here, what next?

Ooh look! Karaoke! New voice exclaimed.

Go into a bar? At 10 in the morning? Would they even be open?

Why would they have their karaoke sign on if they weren't open? New voice asked with a roll of her eyes.

You aren't much of a bar person, Ana, my subconscious reminds me. And you sure as hell don't want to be rubbing elbows with the people who hang out at a bar at this hour. New voice has nothing to say to that because subconscious has a point.

Well, would you look at that, new voice says. There's a coffee shop inside of that used book store down the block.

Curling up in a chair that smells of age with a cup of tea and one of my favorite books sounded really good right about now. I drove past the bar with the flickering karaoke sign and pulled into the parking lot of the used book store. I pause just inside the door to inhale the scent of old books. There is nothing quite like it in the world, and it's almost like some sort of powerful aphrodisiac to me.

The first thing that I do is to go over to the romance section. But, as I look at the rows of books with half-dressed characters depicted on the front cover, I realize that a romance is the last thing that I want to read right now.

But, aside from classical romance novels, what do I like to read?

Unbidden, something that Christian asked me comes to my mind: What do you like, Ms. Steele?

That is the thousand-dollar question. I don't even know if I like to read horror, mystery, sci-fi, or action-adventure novels, and that's sad. I walk around the romance shelf, and it just happens to be sci-fi. Like the romance section, the sci-fi section is packed with novels. Only, these books depict strange creatures and oddly dressed people on the front covers.

There are so many of them; how do I even know what's good and what's not?

"Can I help you find something?"

"Oh… um… I don't know," I say timidly.

This guy works here; ask him for a book recommendation! New voice hisses at me.

"I'm looking for some classical sci-fi novel," I tell him.

"Okay. Have you read Hitchhiker's Guide?"

"I said a sci-fi novel," I clarify. But, the guy had already pulled a book off the shelf, and I flush, embarrassed at my book naivety. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Right. I've heard of that before.

"If you like funny books, you'll probably enjoy this."

"Alright, thanks," I say as I accept the book.

"Well, if there's anything else I can help you find, I'll be around."

"R-right." He leaves, and I go over to the coffee stand with the book and order a cup of tea. I sit down at a table with my beverage, and open the book to the first page to find out if I like sci-fi.

* * *

As it turns out, yes. I devour most of the book in one sitting; it's just that good. I had no idea that sci-fi novels, even older ones, could be so funny and good.

"'He was busy staring at the two white mice sitting-'"

"Hi," said a voice, which drew me back to the present. I looked up from the book and looked at the man who had helped me earlier.

"Hi," I said. "This book is really good."

"I'm glad that you're enjoying it," he said with a hesitant grin. "Listen, I… um… I was wondering if you'd like to grab a cup of coffee sometime."

"What?" I asked; I was a little surprised.

The guy is asking you out, Ana. Say yes, said new voice.

"I'm sorry; I know that we don't even know each other's names, it's just that you're really pretty and you've been sitting there all afternoon, reading one of my favorite novels."

You should say yes; this guy is a total babe. Surprisingly, it's not new voice who says this, but rather, inner goddess. And he is exceptionally good looking. He has dark hair; piercing, baby blue eyes; and stubble grows on his cheeks like he hasn't shaved in a day or two. He isn't Christian Grey, but he is a babe, as Inner Goddess said.

"Sure. I'd love to. I'm Ana."

"Remy."

"Why don't I give you my number and you can call me later, okay?"

"Um, sure." Remy grabs a business card from the coffee shop counter, borrows a pen from the barista, and I write my name and number on the back of the card.

"I should… uh… Get back now. I live in Vancouver, but my… um… roommate was driving me crazy, so that's why I came up to Seattle."

"Oh. Is that…?"

"Oh, we're in the process of packing up to move to Seattle," I quickly explain. "We've already got an apartment picked out, and we'll be moving in a week."

"Oh. Alright then. I'll… uh… I'll call you." I smile at him as I take my cup back to the coffee stand counter, and then purchase the book.

I can't wipe the smile off my face as I drive back to Vancouver. Who needs Christian Grey when I gave my number to Remy?

Maybe Remy won't get sexual gratification from hurting people, says new voice. She's got a giant grin on her face, too.

* * *

A very noticeable sports car is parked in my usual space in front of the apartment when I get back. And even though I'm certain that some of my neighbors must drive sports cars, I know that it can only belong to one person.

Why can't this guy take a hint? New voice says with a snarl.

What do I do? I ask her.

You're going to march in there with your head held up high and you're going to tell him in no uncertain terms that he is to leave, take his things with him, and not return.

I park a few spaces away, and then I march up the steps and unlock the door.

"Ana! Thank goodness that you're alright!" Christian says the second that I have the door open.

"Christian, I told you that 'we' were over," I tell him sternly. I walk into my bedroom, but he trails after me.

"Ana! Please! If it's the contract, we can work something out!" he begs me. I don't say anything; I just grab the laptop and shove it into his hands.

"Take this and leave."

"But-"

"NOW!" The sad look on Christian's face is instantly replaced by something cold and unreadable.

"If that's how you're going to talk to me, then I suppose that it's just as well that we didn't pursue this any further," he says. "You're right; you would not make a very good sub for me at all." That's it? After coming over and staying in the apartment all day, and all of the harassing emails, he's just going to leave? Just like that?

I can hardly believe my luck, but new voice shakes her head sadly at me. Christian leaves the apartment, and I follow him out. "Ana…" He starts when he's outside. But, I shut the door in his face, and turn the dead-bolt.

Nope. He is out of my life now. New voice is still shaking her head, and despite how quiet that she has become, I somehow know that this isn't over quite yet.

But, I'm broken from worrying about what Christian Grey might do to me as my phone starts to ring. I don't recognize the number, so I answer it.

"Hi, is this Ana?"

"Speaking?"

"Hi, Ana. This is Remy… from the book store."

"Remy! Hi!"


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, so a couple of things: I apologize and I know that maybe I should have been a bit clearer about the pairings and the fact that this is an AU.

This is an AU.

The main pairing will Ana/Male OC.

This is a story that will explore the reality in which Ana realizes that Christian is an abusive creep and leaves him, but Christian can't take no for an answer.

I have decided that there will be sex, but not right now. And not all of it will be consensual.

* * *

Thank you to everybody who reviewed, but honestly, some of your reviews were confusing and I questioned why you took the time away from your lives to write one.

As before, this is unedited, so if you spot any sort of grammatical mistake, please let me know.

And I'd appreciate any reviews. I don't bite (much).

* * *

"Remy! Hi!"

"Hi, Ana. I'm glad that you could come up to Seattle again."

"It's not that big of a deal, honestly," I insisted. "I have a bunch of job interviews up here, and, as I mentioned yesterday, my roommate and I are moving up here next week."

"May I buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Um, a cup of tea, please."

"It's really crowed in here; why don't you try to find a table and I'll get the drinks?"

"Okay," I agreed, and left Remy standing in line. I found a table in the corner that nobody wanted because it was a little sticky. Okay, a lot sticky, but it's not like Remy and I were going to work on our homework, like so many of the other people in the coffee shop seemed to be doing.

As I looked around the crowded shop, I recalled the last time that I was in a similar coffee shop. It was only last week, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Sure, things were going pretty okay with Christian. Sure, I was nervous, but it was quite literally my first date, the first time that I'd gone out with a Christian, and it didn't help the fact that Christian was exceptionally good looking and insanely rich.

He had been interested in me!

I frowned at the errant thought. Just because some guy was interested in me didn't give me license to change who I am as a person in order to please him.

It had been so much easier to like Christian before you saw his Red Room of Pain, said new voice. I'd taken to calling her logical reasoning. And before you started to realize how messed up that the guy is. It's probably for the best that you got out while you could.

You let yourself be whored out for some books and a blouse? Subconscious pointed out.

Ana is going to give those books back to Christian, logical reasoning snapped.

But you just jumped into bed with him. Without even really knowing much about him. For fuck's sake; you barely met the man a week before that! Subconscious roared. She was having a lot of trouble moving past the fact that I'd been such a whore.

Kate slept with Elliot without knowing him for even twenty-four hours, and yet, she seemed exceptionally happy. So why was it the one time that I let myself open like this, and the guy turns into an abusive stalker?

It's not like you turned him into that, hon, logical reasoning tells me quickly. You saw the Red Room of Pain, and he told you that you weren't the first.

Although, that does bring up another question: does Christian consider Mrs. Robinson one of the fifteen? Subconscious asks. Or is she separate from the rest, because she was the dominatrix in the relationship?

Before any of the voices inside my head can answer (or yell at me, like logical reasoning is about ready to do), Remy comes over to the table and puts down two cups of hot water, with tea bags on the saucers. I push the thoughts of Christian to the back of my mind, because I'm here on a date with Remy now.

"So, why are you and your roommate moving to Seattle?" Remy starts as he dips his teabag into the cup. "Oh, I forgot to ask if you take sugar."

"No, I like my tea black," I insist.

"It's just as well, because it's super crowded over there, and I'm not sure that I'd be able to get the sugar shaker…" Remy says as he turns around in his seat to look at the counter. "I'm sorry; I didn't know that it would be this crowded here."

"No, it's fine," I say quickly. "Um, anyway, Kate and I are moving up here because there's more job opportunities for me. She's already got a job lined up, though, because her father knows a guy who knows a guy."

"That sounds like you've got things figured out. Which is nice. Did you just graduate?"

"No, in a few days."

"WSU?" Remy asks, and I agree. "Nice. I graduated from there last year. Art student with a minor in psychology. I know, I know. Tell me how worthless that it is and how I've got a BA and I'm working at a used book store in Seattle for minimum wage."

"No," I say quickly. "If your drawing or painting or sculpting or whatever medium that you work with, then I think that it's wonderful that you did that. You knew what you wanted… what you want… and you're going after it, no matter what."

"That was oddly eloquent, so I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're an English major?"

"Jeez, how did you know?" I ask with a laugh.

"When you hear too many people ask you 'how are you going to earn a living with a degree in that', you tend to say stuff like 'as long as it makes me happy, I don't care. I'll find a way.' And yours was, as I sad, exceptionally well-worded."

"I don't think that it was all that eloquent, but thank you." I hide my face as I take a sip of tea. "So… um… what medium do you work in?"

"Paintings, mostly, but sometimes I'll get the urge to sculpt and make lumpy, lop-sided vases."

"Well, that sounds a lot better than my failed attempts at clay in high school art," I say with a laugh. "It was a miracle that the vase held water at all."

"Well, I don't-" Remy started, but broke off when somebody bumped into him from behind and caused him to spill his tea all over the table. "Hey! Watch it!" Remy said, but the kid either didn't hear him, or didn't care, because he just walked off. The tea was spreading all over the table, and I had to stand or else it would end up in my lap. "Well, that's the end of that, I guess. We probably should have left when we saw how busy that it was in here."

"Well, it was good while it lasted," I said rather sadly. Remy put some napkins down on the table, but there weren't enough, and he went to go get some more.

While he was gone, my phone started to ring; it was a wonder that I could even hear it in the noise of the cafe. I pulled it out of my bag and checked the caller ID: Christian.

I hit ignore and slipped it back into my bag. The guy could seriously not take a hint!

Remy came back a moment later with a towel and used it to mop the mess up. "Well, on the bright side, at least this table is clean for the next customer?"

"Shall we leave then?"

"Yeah; just let me give this back to the barista," Remy said as he held up the now-soaked towel.

"I'll be outside." I made my way through the crowd that was gathering by the door (seriously, there is no need for everybody to be inside of the cafe! It wasn't even raining!) and breathed a sigh of relief once I was outside. A moment later, I was joined by Remy.

"Sorry," Remy said again. "I was going to suggest the cafe at the book store, since you seemed to enjoy the tea there yesterday, but that seemed a bit weird. A date at the place where I work?" He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I'm sorry; what were we talking about before?"

"My bad clay-throwing skills."

"Oh, that's right. Well anyway, I think that what you need is practice. There's a class that's going to be starting at the Seattle Community center in two weeks, and I was thinking about going. Would you like to come?" I thought about this for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, but when I think about a couple going to throw pottery, I can't help but think of that scene from Ghost."

"Oh," Remy said with a laugh. "Well, I'm not a ghost. And, not gonna lie, I'd probably be more interested in my lumpy vase."

"But what about-" I cut off as my phone started to ring again. I dug it out with frustration, and hoped that it wasn't Christian again.

It was.

"Stop calling me," I hissed under my breath as I hit the ignore button.

"Is everything okay?" Remy asked hesitantly as I threw my phone back into my bag. I bit my lip as I pondered how much I should tell him.

Hon, you need to be upfront with him from the get-go. If that scares him off, then he probably wasn't worth your time in the first place, Logical Reasoning said.

"Can I tell you something that's a bit… um… personal? And intense?"

"Are you a serial killer?"

"What? Oh god, no!"

"Okay, good. I always lead with that question, because I don't know what could possibly be worse than a serial killer."

"Yesterday, the reason why I was in Seattle was because I came up to escape this creep. We'd kind of been going out, but after a while, he started to get all super-attached. If I didn't check in with him, then he'd email or call me almost non-stop."

"And that was him just now?"

"Yes. I'm not sure if this is bad date etiquette or not, but I finally put my foot down yesterday and told him to stay away from me. I thought that I'd seen the last of him, but now he won't stop calling me."

"Ana, this isn't okay! You need to go to the police!"

"What? Why?"

"Because you can get a restraining order against him! It's not okay for a guy to harass you like that! Today, it's him insistently calling you, but tomorrow, he might break into your house and rape you. Or worse."

I told you he was dangerous, Logical Reasoning hissed.

"D-do you really think that he might do something like that?" I whispered, but it was more to myself than to Remy.

"I don't know; you tell me."

The first thing that came to mind was the Red Room of Pain.

But then, I thought of how I'd emailed Christian the other day to tell him goodbye, and then he just came over to the apartment.

"Will you come with me?" I finally whispered.

"Yes, of course."

* * *

I'd never been to a real police station before; I'd only seen them on popular TV shows like Law and Order. I expected some semblance of order and that we'd go in and ask to file a harassment report.

Instead, we were directed to the second floor, which was filled with dirty women wearing tube tops, fishnets, and way too much make up, and bedraggled-looking youths who looked like they hadn't gotten a decent meal in a long time. The harassed-looking officer up on the second floor told us that we would have to wait, so we sat on hard, plastic chairs between two hookers.

"I'm sorry; this is a horrible first date."

"This isn't your fault, Ana. You had no way of knowing that the guy would turn into a complete creeper."

"I honestly sort of expected you to run for the hills when I told you."

"What? And miss hanging out at a police station surrounded by beautiful women?" He turned to the woman sitting next to him. "How you doin'?"

"I'm doing much better now that you're here," said the person in a much, much deeper voice than I anticipated.

"Um, I don't mean to be rude, but are you a woman?"

"I might be. How badly do you want to know?"

"Um, do you want to wait out in the hall?" Remy asked me. I nodded, and we relocated to a bench out in the hall. It was quieter out here, and we were alone, with the exception of officers coming and going. "So… um… what else has this guy done besides non-stop calling you?"

"Um, about a week after we met, my friends and I went out to a bar to celebrate the end of finals. I got really shit-faced, and I drunkenly called him. He then used my phone to track where I was and came to the bar."

"That probably should have been your first clue. Tracking data like that is illegal for a reason."

"I know," I said as I buried my head in my hands. "But I was drunk and a little turned on. And he seemed really interested in me. Not to mention the fact that when he showed up, I was being felt up by… um… my friend. I tried to tell my friend no, but he wouldn't listen, and then Christian showed up. Oh, Christian's the guy, and Jose is my friend."

"Well… drunken sexual assault… stalking…" Remy moved his hands up and down a little with his palms up like he was literally weighing the two options. "I'm honestly not quite sure which of those two is worse. So this Christian guy saved you from being assaulted?"

"Yeah, but then I got sick and Christian told me that he was going to take me home. But I had to tell my roommate, Kate, that I was leaving, but then I passed out in the bar and woke up in Christian's hotel room."

"Wait, the guy got a hotel room because he didn't know where you lived?"

"No! Christian lives in Seattle, but he came down to Portland for some sort of business meeting or something. He was staying at a hotel already."

"Oh. That's a little less creepy, but not much. If you drank to the point where you passed out, the bar should have called you an ambulance. Or Christian should have taken you to the hospital, because you could have had alcohol poisoning. But even if you hadn't passed out, he still should have taken you back to your home, not to his hotel room. Especially since you say that your friends were at the bar, too."

I bit my lip absently as I pondered Remy's words. He was right; despite the fact that Kate was busy preforming her mating dance, and Jose had tried to assault me, I was there with a bunch of other people that I considered friends from the school. Why hadn't they said anything?

I mean, I'd passed out drunk, and nobody bothered to stop a man that they didn't really know from taking me?

Actually, why didn't Kate stop Christian from taking me from the bar? She must have seen the whole thing. Some friend she is; she was too busy trying to get laid that maybe she didn't even notice.

"Okay, so rather than to try and take you back home or even to the hospital, this guy takes you back to his hotel room. Please don't tell me that he saved you from an assault only to assault you while you were passed out."

"No… At least, I don't think so? He said that he didn't do anything, and I believed him. My pants were off, though, and he said that he slept in the bed next to me, but he was already up by the time that I woke up."

"And waking up with no pants on in a bed of a man that you seem to not have known very well at the time seemed… okay to you at the time?"

"No," I said miserably as I buried my head in my hands again. "I just… I don't know. I'd never been with anybody, ever, and he made me feel like there wasn't something wrong with me because I… I was really attracted to him."

"Ana," Remy started, but trailed off when the door from the second floor stairs opened. A plain-clothes woman came up, and eyed the two of us as she approached the squad room.

"Can I help you two with something?" she asked.

"Um, we're waiting for an available officer to talk to about a harasser," Remy said.

"Okay. I can see you right now."

"What about all of the people in there?" I asked as I gestured to the squad room. The woman walked over to the door and looked through the little window set into it.

"Hm, yeah. Harassment issue, prostitution, or some street kids?" the lady said. "Come on. Can I get you something to drink?"


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for deciding to read chapter three.

I know that the time line on this is a little screwy and doesn't quite match up with the time line from 50 Shades of Grey. But, quite frankly, it's really messed up how the book takes place over the span of less than a month, and the entire series takes place in only a few months.

Anyway, as usual, please let me know if you spot any grammatical errors, and feel free to leave me a review.

* * *

The sky was alight with orange, pink, and blue by the time that Remy and I walked out from the police station. "That took a really long time. Are you sure that you're okay?"

"Yeah." I honestly felt like such a relief to realize that I wasn't a complete bitch for just walking away from Christian like that; that the way that he had been treating me was not only not normal, but borderline illegal at times.

Oh, the police officer, Michelle, had been rather interested when I'd told her that Christian had tracked me down at the bar using my phone. She'd told me multiple times that if I was serious about seeing this restraining order through, that I'd have to get a new phone. I wasn't overly attached to the one that I did have, and the longer that I talked with Michelle and Remy about the entire situation, the more certain that I became that I was making the right decision.

"I didn't mean for this to turn into an all-day affair; I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Not like I had anything interesting planned. Charlie even gave me her number." Remy fingered the slip of paper that the overly masculine prostitute had handed him before we'd left.

"Are you going to call her?"

"Nah. She's got a record. So, do you want to grab something to eat before you head back to Vancouver?"

"Um, I'm not really that hungry."

"Alright." That was it. No insistence that I needed to eat. It was an unusual change of pace, but I liked it. "Can I see you again?" I was staring up at the sunset, but looked back to Remy, startled.

"I thought that what I told you today would have sent you running for the hills."

"Nah. I like it when girls are brutally honest with me. Well, not usually on the first date, but…" Remy trailed off and nervously rubbed the back of his head. "You've practically laid your soul bare to me about what you've been through in your past relationships, and you don't really know much about me."

"You're an art grad from WSU class of 2010 who works at a used book store," I said. "You love Hitchhiker's Guide. You sometimes make lumpy vases."

"Yes, but there's more to me than making lumpy vases, Ana," Remy said quietly. He pulled out a folded up piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. I unfolded it; it was an old flyer for a police clothing drive for homeless children that had happened last month. I raised an eyebrow at Remy. "Turn it over."

I did, and stared down at a sketch of myself. It was a little rough around the edges, but it was easy to tell with one glance that it was me. "This is really great, Remy. Thank you," I said as I looked the drawing over. "I don't know when I'll be able to see you again, though. I'm graduating in two days, and then Kate and I are moving up here."

"Would you mind if I came down to see you after you graduate?"

"Um, if you want. The ceremony is going to be… Oh crap! I completely forgot that Christian is going to be speaking at the ceremony."

"What are you going to do? Can you ask that you're mailed your diploma instead?"

"I don't know; it's really last minute, and my mom is coming up from Georgia to see me."

"Well, if this year's graduation was anything like last year's, there will be a lot of people there. Aside from the few seconds that you're on stage, you should probably just blend in with the crowd."

"Yes… You're right. I'm a Steele, so I should be near the back of the auditorium. There's no way that he'll see me, and there'll be so many people there, that he probably won't start something."

"I didn't really want to go to the actual ceremony, but now I think that I want to endure the tedium just to see this creeper."

"Remy, you don't have to do that."

"No, but I want to. And maybe I have other friends in your graduating class?" He gave me a teasing, playful smile.

"If you show up, then there's not much that I can do about that. I'll see you on Thursday, then."

* * *

"Ana! Where have you been? I've been really worried about you!"

"Sorry, I got… caught up with something important in Seattle."

"Did you meet up with Christian?"

"What? No! I told that loser to hit the road! I don't want to see him again!"

"Well, I'm glad. It was really creepy how he was just hanging around here all day yesterday."

"You should have called the police, Kate! He has no legal ground to stand on for invading our home like that!"

"What's gotten into you lately, Ana?" Kate said as she followed me to my bedroom. "I've never seen you this assertive before. I kind of like it."

"I guess that I was just tired of people walking all over me, that's all. I might have never been in a romantic relationship before, but I think that Christian sort of crossed a line."

"Ana, he crossed several lines, from what I can tell."

"Too many lines."

"Well, what was so important that took you all day to do in Seattle?"

"I actually went up there for a date."

"A… date?" Kate blinked at me in complete shock. "You just broke up with Christian, and you somehow found somebody to go out with the very next day?"

"You're making it sound like I'm some sort of whore or that this is a rebound relationship, but you don't know what's been going on between me and Christian, and you certainly don't know Remy."

"Okay, I suppose that I should give you the benefit of the doubt here, Ana. Why don't you enlighten me?" Kate asked. I shifted from foot to foot as I tried to figure out how much I should or could tell her.

"You remember when I when with Christian up to Seattle?"

"Yeaaah…"

"When we got to his house, he made me sign a NDA."

"Ana, honey, that should have been your first clue. Normal people don't make you sign NDA's in order to have sex with them."

"I wasn't really thinking too much about that. I signed it without reading it, too. But, it wasn't about the sex… it's… um… something that Christian enjoys to do."

"Ana, you're starting to scare me."

"I can't really say anything more; I'm sorry."

"Well obviously, whatever it was wasn't enough to send you running for the hills, because you were with him for close to twenty-four hours."

"No, the final straw was how… obsessed that he became with me. He would constantly be calling, texting, or emailing me, and the longer that I went without responding to him, the more he would try to contact me."

"Well, I'm really glad that you came to this realization on your own. Jeez, Ana, if I had known what a creep that he was, I would have called the police. I didn't mean for him to be here when you got back yesterday."

"So anyway, back to what I was doing in Seattle… I was on a date with Remy, who I met at a used book store yesterday. After Christian left, Remy called and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop. But, when we were in there, Christian called, and Remy wanted to know why I was so annoyed, and I told him about Christian, and he told me that I needed to file a police report for harassment."

"And this guy didn't completely flip out when you told him?"

"That's the thing; no! I thought that he would, and then I'd just come back home, but he was really supportive and nice about the entire thing. He went with me to the police station and sat with me while I talked to an officer about the entire issue."

"What did the officer have to say?"

"She told me that Christian's actions warrant a restraining order. But, these things take time to process."

"Oh, Ana, what about graduation? It's in two days; you're never going to be able to pull out like this at the last minute."

"I was a little worried about that, too. I talked it over with Remy, and I'm certain that there'll be so many other people there and so much going on, that Christian won't notice me."

"I sure hope that you're right."

"Besides, I don't want to live the rest of my life in complete fear of this guy."

"That's the spirit, Ana! In a few days, all of this will be over, you'll have a restraining order against Christian, and we'll be in Seattle. You can put this behind you. So… this book-store guy. I don't even know his name, but I like him already."

"I told you; it's Remy."

"Okay. Well, obviously he's a little better than Christian in the fact that he seems to at least respect you enough to tell you to file a police report for some guy who's harassing you. But other than that, what's he like?"

"He's an art student who graduated from WSU last year," I tell her as I fish the drawing that he gave me out from my bag.

* * *

I spent the entire next day completely dreading the graduation. I replayed the conversation that Remy and I had in front of the police station over and over to keep myself from having a complete panic attack.

I knew that I should have tried to contact the school in order to see about getting out of the graduation, but then I recalled what I'd told Kate after I'd come home from Seattle: I didn't want to live my life in fear of Christian Grey.

And why should I change my plans just because this guy couldn't take no for an answer?

It was late in the afternoon when my mom called me to tell me that Bob had a bad concussion on top of a broken leg, and she needed to stay with him so that he didn't injure himself further. I wanted to scream with frustration when she told me this. The reason why I decided not to see if I could get out of the ceremony was because she was coming up, and now it probably was too late.

You knew that she probably wouldn't have come up anyway, said Logical Reasoning. She's too much of a flake and couldn't even be bothered to come up to your high school graduation, too. She just had some pretty excuse this time.

I wanted to fling my phone across the room in frustration, but that's what immature people do, and I'm nearly a college graduate and a mature adult; mature people don't do that.

Instead, I turned my phone off and went to borrow Kate's laptop. Maybe it was time that I enter the digital age and buy myself one. It didn't have to be top of the line like the laptop that Christian had given me, but it was 2011 and the only email account that I'd ever had was the one that Christian had given me.

Once it had started up, I typed "Remy Nelson" into google, because I was curious to know more about him. I figured that knowing some more about him couldn't hurt. But, as the page loaded, I thought to myself that if I had googled Christian Grey, I wouldn't have found out about his Red Room of Pain, or about how much of a creep that he was.

The first thing that came up was a website that depicted some pieces of art. Even though I don't know much about art, I recognized some stylistic idiosyncrasies in the paintings on the website and the sketch that Remy had given me.

Most of the paintings were of people, and were swathed in bright colors. But every now and then, there would be something that was done in more demure colors. The very last thing that was posted (or the very first, I supposed) was a pencil drawing of an elderly woman who was kneading bread.

It was such a simple subject, but it was obviously done with such care. The title of the piece was simply "Grandmother".

Kate came into the room. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find out more about Remy."

"Okay. Ooh, what's that?"

"I found his website with some of his art."

"Wow, the guy's got some serious talent. You just be careful this time, okay? Don't sign anything, and say no if you're uncomfortable with anything."

"I know. Believe me; I have completely learned my lesson."

* * *

I really wasn't ready to face Christian today, especially not without my mom here to at least justify my going to graduation. But, at least Ray came down from Montesano, so I didn't feel so completely bad about the entire thing. But then I remembered that Remy had said that he would come, and I couldn't help but smile at the thought.

After going the first 21 years of my life without thinking much about sex and romantic relationships outside of novels, it was difficult for me to imagine that there was another person that I was sexually attracted to other than Christian Grey.

The ceremony was rather dull and uninteresting. Even though I had listened to Kate's speech before, I still gasped and laughed along with everybody on cue. She sure did know how to captivate an audience.

I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat when Christian stepped forward to make his speech. Despite everything that had occurred over the past three days (Holy shit, had it really been just three days), I still found that I was attracted to him.

Calm down, Ana, Logical Reasoning whispered to me. The guy is a horrible person, and no amount of sex or charming good looks will ever make up for that.

In the back of my mind, my inner goddess scowled.

I looked around at the parents and other guests to see if I could find Remy. I spotted Ray, but there were just so many people here that it was hard to tell if Remy was here or not.

With some unspoken signal, everybody rose to their feet to start to march across the stage to accept their diplomas. I hadn't even noticed that Christian had finished his speech; I'd honestly stopped listened when he'd started in on his "feed the world" rampage. (Honestly, it's important to want to feed starving children in Africa, but there's a time and a place, and a graduation is not it!)

The flow of the new-graduates walking across the stage was that one person would shake the hand of Christian, the person directly after them would shake the hand of the dean of the college, and then the third person would again go to Christian. As the line crept up, I counted where I was, and realized that I would end up shaking hands with Christian.

I couldn't change places in line, because he had the diploma with my name on it.

And if I left the line, then it would completely screw up the entire flow of the ceremony.

I started to hyperventilate, and too soon, my name was called.

Calm down, deep breaths. You can do this. You can do this, my subconscious whispered to me as I walked across the stage.

I didn't smile at him as he handed me my diploma. He reached his hand out, his eyes angry despite his smile, which became exceptionally pony the closer that I got. I didn't accept his hand, just turned around and walked off the stage.

I didn't care; I just needed to get out.

"Congratulations class of 2011!" the dean said once everybody was back in their seats. "You did it!" I was vaguely aware of people cheering and tossing their hats into the air, but I just sat numbly in my seat.

Eventually, everybody started to leave to go over to the marquee for drinks, and I got up, too.

"Ana!" somebody called as I started to leave the auditorium. I looked over my shoulder and groaned with dismay. The last thing that I wanted right now was a confrontation with Christian Grey.


	4. Chapter 4

Hej-hej! Thanks for coming to chapter four!

I just wanted to thank everybody for taking time away from their precious lives to leave me a review. Even if some of your reviews don't make much sense.

As with the previous chapters, this is mostly unedited, so if you spot any weird grammar stuff going on, please let me know!

Cheers and happy reading!

–Kitty

* * *

I was a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck. I knew that by staying in the middle of the road, I would be killed, but I was rooted to the spot by my fear.

The crowd parted easily for Christian, and I winced as I caught snippets of whispered conversations around me.

"Why is he coming over here?"

"Do you think that it's his girlfriend?"

"Wow, I wish that I knew Christian Grey!"

No you don't! I screamed inside of my head.

And then, he was standing before me. And boy was he pissed.

"Would you mind explaining to me why I'm now having to appear in court to discuss charges that you've filed against me?" Christian asked, his voice low.

"She doesn't have to explain anything to you," said a gruff voice behind me. I turned; it was Remy. I looked further back and I realized that Ray was making his way through the crowd over to where I stood. "And, if you actually bothered to read the letter, I'm sure that you would have found that it was quite clear why you're request in court."

"Ms. Steele, might I remind you of the NDA that you signed?"

"I remember it very well, thank you," I said evenly. It was a small wonder that my voice didn't break. "You've still done enough horrible things even before I signed it to warrant filing restraining order."

"Come on, Ana. You don't have to put up with this," Remy said. I turned around and ran into Ray.

"Is everything okay, Annie?" he asked with a frown.

"Everything's fine, dad. Let's go." I started to walk, and Remy and Ray followed after me until we were outside. There, I paused and pulled the graduation cap off my head.

"Annie?" Ray asked again.

"Don't worry about it, okay, dad? I've got everything under control."

"I don't know about you, but that ceremony was so dull, that the only thing that I want to do is drink cheep booze until the memories are blurry!" Remy said to break the tension. I could sure use a good drink myself, but I wasn't about to say that in front of Ray.

"Dad, this is my friend, Remy. Remy, my step-dad, Ray," I said as we started to walk over.

"How are you, sir?" Remy asked as they shook hands. I spotted Kate's family across the marquee almost as soon as we stepped inside; Kate spotted me almost as quickly, and she started to make her way over to us.

"Hi! Are you okay?" she asked when she saw the look on my face.

"We'll talk later," I whisper to her. I hadn't even realized that Remy had left my side until he comes back with drinks.

"Ooh, are you Remy?" Kate asks him.

"I am."

"Ana, you never mentioned how cute that he was," Kate whispers to me. Remy is talking with Ray, but he flashed me an awkward smile.

"You never asked what he looked like."

"Well, he is easy on the eyes. And, mm, I could get lost in those baby-blues."

"Kate!" I half-laugh.

"Oh, shush! I'm with Elliot now, remember? He's all yours! Speaking of which, what happened? You came in and you looked like you could murder somebody."

"Christian confronted me right after the ceremony was over," I tell her in a hushed voice.

"Oh no. I knew that this was no good. We should have gone and asked for you to be excused. I also notice that you didn't shake Christian's hand on stage; you just walked off. And boy, did he look mad!"

"Well, I should probably go now," I said as I looked around the marquee. It was filling up with more students now, and I figured that it was only a matter of time until Christian came in.

"Okay. I'm probably going to spend some time with my family, and then I'm going out for dinner with Elliot later, so don't wait up for me." Kate paused as her eyes flicked over Remy again. "Not like you don't have a good reason to wait up, though."

"Kate!" I hissed, completely mortified that she would say something like that. Ray and Remy were only a few feet away from us, and it's not like Kate was trying to keep her voice down.

But still, the marquee was filled with the light chatter of the recent graduates and their friends and family, so I'm not so sure if they heard or not. Kate turned to go back to her family, and I walked over to rejoin Remy and my dad. Remy seemed relieved that I had returned.

"Dad, do you want to grab some lunch?"

"Sure, Annie. Do you want to come with us, Remy?"

"Nah, I'd better head back to Seattle now. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Steele."

* * *

"That Remy guy sure is an interesting character," Ray says when we're in a booth at a small restaurant not too far from school.

"Why? What did you talk about?" I wonder if Remy told him about what we did yesterday; I sure hope not because it's not Remy's place to say something like that to my dad, but mostly because I don't want for Ray to worry about me.

"You, mostly. He said that he wanted my permission to continue to see you, since it's very important to have parental support, but he also said that it was important that neither of us treated you like we owned you."

"Oh." That was the complete opposite of what I expected Ray to tell me. And mostly because I figured that Christian would never say any of those things. He wanted to own me, and sometimes, when we were talking about that thrice-damned contract of his, I felt as if I was a business acquisition, rather than a living human being.

"I told him that I respected the fact that he asked me, and how he seemed to respect you, too," Ray said after several moments of silence. "He seems like a nice young man. I'm glad that you're finally starting to take an interest in dating, Ana. Your mother and I have been a little worried about you, to be honest."

"Dad, there's nothing wrong with having no interest in sex."

"I was thankful for it when you were a teenager. You hear about it happening to other people's kids, and you never want for it to happen to yours. You never brought a boy home, and you never mentioned being interested in anybody when you moved away. The dream of a father not to have to deal with his daughter getting knocked up when she's still a baby started to get old pretty fast once you started college, though."

"Dad, my happiness does not hinge upon me being with a guy. I was perfectly happy before I met… Remy, and even if we were to break up and I live the rest of my life as a nun, I'd still be happy."

"And I want for you to be happy, too, honey. No matter what you choose."

Isn't that the exact opposite of what he said a minute ago? Logical reasoning whispered to me, but I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and changed the topic. I was determined to enjoy the time that I had with Ray before he went back home.

* * *

For some reason, I had a giant knot in the pit of my stomach that when I got back to the apartment, Christian would be waiting for me. I scanned the parking lot for a too-fancy, too-expensive sports car, and when I didn't see any, I carefully went up to our unit and opened the door as loudly as I could.

It was dark in there, and I almost missed the slip of paper that sat on the floor; somebody must have slipped it under the door. It said "Ms. Steele" in a curvy script on the front, but I put it on the kitchen counter before I did a sweep of the apartment to make sure that I was really alone. I felt a little silly, but relieved to know that I was really alone right now.

Once that was completed, I went back to the kitchen and opened the note.

Ms. Steele,

I am rather saddened by the fact that you wish to build a legal case against me. I did not mean to scare you off, and I hope that we can come to some sort of arrangement on our own.

Out of the courts.

I did hope that you would have considered our previous arrangement. After all, you seemed keen to discuss it the other night. I am more than willing to renegotiate it if that is your desire. You didn't have to go to such extremes.

Yours, CG

"Fat chance in hell," I mumbled as I went to crumple the note. But then I remembered what Michelle, the police officer, had told me about saving any sort of communication that he sent to me. I then turned around and started to smooth the note out on the counter.

I went into my room and carefully tucked the note in between two pages of Hitchhiker's Guide, which I had reread yesterday in my nervousness.

I then turned my phone on; I had a couple of voice mail messages, but they were from my mom, Jose, and some of my other friends, and they all congratulated me on my graduation today. Nothing important and nothing that couldn't wait to deal with until later.

I wrote out a message to Remy, "Hi. I hope you made it back to Seattle safely." He didn't respond right away, but he still might be on the road. It was only just about two hours since I'd said goodbye to him at the marquee.

I paced around my room for a moment, before Logical Reasoning chimed in, would you relax? Waiting by the phone isn't going to make him respond faster.

Yes. She was right. I turned the radio in my room on low just to have some background noise, and then I started to sort through my things in order to determine what would be making the move with me to Seattle in a few days, and what would go to Good Will.

I was in a good groove with my sorting to the beat of the music when my phone chirped that I had a new message. I dropped what I was doing and reached for my phone, which was lying on the middle of my bed.

"Yeah, just got back. Hope lunch with your dad went okay."

"It did. We talked about you a little."

When Remy didn't reply at first, I went back to packing again. It was difficult to find the rhythm that I'd had before, so it was easy to pull myself out of it when he did reply. "Okay, so maybe I was a little out of line in asking permission from your father. But I believe that there is a lot to learn from the relationship of your parents, and they have a lot that they can teach us, but maybe we don't necessarily always agree with what they have to say. (Love is blind, and maybe your parents could have warned you away from somebody that maybe was no good for you if you weren't so clouded by your love.)"

A second message came in before I could even finish reading the first one. "Okay, so maybe I didn't mean for that message to come out that way. But do you know what I mean?"

I sat back on my heels as I processed what Remy had said. Okay, so maybe my judgment was a little clouded because Christian was the first man that I'd been really attracted to. And maybe some of what Christian said to me the night that I lost my virginity got to me. But if my parents knew what Christian wanted to do to me, would they have told me to run away?

Would they have encouraged me to file for a restraining order against him for non-stop harassment?

I felt as if I couldn't fully answer the first question because of the NDA that I signed, but I was certain that if Ray knew about how Christian had been and was continuing to follow me around and harass me, he would maim first, and ask questions never.

"No, I think that maybe you're on to something there. I suppose that maybe my view of relationships isn't that great because my father died when I was little and my mom is such a flake; she's on marriage number four right now."

"Your mom's marriage to your bio-dad doesn't count as a divorce statistic, though," Remy replied a few minutes later.

"Christian left me a letter at my apartment."

"What? Why didn't you tell me? When?"

"I don't know when he left it; he slid it under the front door, so it could have been sitting there all day, for all I know. He says that he wants to work something out." I left out the part about him reworking his contract. It wasn't the contract part that I was worried about, though; it was the non-stop harassment and stalking that was worrying me.

"Well, what do you want to do, Ana?"

"I feel like if I do decide to press forward with this restraining order, that it's only just going to make things a lot worse. He was really angry at the ceremony."

"Ana, the thing about restraining orders is that they are only as good as the paper that they're written on. (That is to say that they're essentially worthless.) The kind of people who would obey a restraining order (aka, law-abiding citizens like us) wouldn't need to have one filed against them. A restraining order might keep Christian from emailing and calling you, or from going to your place of work without the security guards calling the cops, but a piece of paper sure as hell won't keep him from breaking into your apartment in the middle of the night to sniff your panties. Or whatever he might do. I don't know; you know him."

Once again, I sat back on my heels as I processed what Remy had just said. Then, I quickly typed out a reply. "Then what exactly is the point of filing a restraining order if you don't think that it's going to actually protect me?"

"It's something that'll be on the record in case what is now stalking and harassment turns into something much, much worse." Remy's reply was almost instant, as if he'd been expecting for me to ask something like that. A shiver of completely unadulterated fear went down my spine.

I wish that Kate was here, or Remy, or that I'd asked my dad to stay until Kate got back. I didn't want to be alone right now. I went out into the kitchen to pick up our landline, and I started to dial Jose's number until Logical Reasoning chimed in.

Are you sure that you want to do that? I mean, he practically assaulted you in the parking lot of the bar.

Yes, but he was drunk, Subconscious pointed out. If Ana calls and says that she's afraid, he'd come over, no questions asked, and stay here until Kate comes. But, LR's words still made me pause. I put the receiver down and went back to my room.

"Ana? Are you okay? I didn't mean to worry you about what MIGHT happen. You still haven't officially filed anything yet, and Christian still has to sign the paperwork, even if you do go ahead with this. And, from what you claim that his letter said, it still sounds like he wants to try and work the kinks out of your relationship."

Kinks. What an odd choice of word. Of course, Remy had no clue about what Christian enjoyed doing in his free time, but it still jumped out at me as being odd. But, he was right. Christian, while angry, seemed like he wasn't going to try and over-step his boundaries. Not while I'd called the law's attention to him.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the foot of my bed while I sat on the floor.

I still had time. But how much?


	5. Chapter 5

As always, unedited, so please let me know of any weird grammar stuff that might have snuck through.

Cheers and happy reading! –Kitty

* * *

After everything that I'd been through with Christian Grey, the last thing that I wanted to see was Elliot. But, I put aside the resentment I held for Elliot's adoptive brother for our move. And, quite frankly, it was a bit of a relief to have somebody strong around to help us move into our new apartment.

I know that if I had asked Remy to help, he probably would have come, too, but I sort of felt bad about dragging him into my mess with Christian. And, unless Elliot specifically told Christian our new address, there was no way that Christian would be able to find us here, because I hadn't told him the address before.

And the day after graduation, I'd gone out and bought myself a new phone. Only after I'd activated the new one, then I pried the microcard out from the back of my old one and smashed it. It might have been a bit over the top, but I felt a lot better after I'd done it; in a way, it offered me a little piece of mind that Christian would be unable to track me with it again.

The final bit of security that I was offered was the fact that I was no longer an employee at Clayton's. I didn't exactly have a job ready for me in Seattle, but I did have a couple of internship interviews lined up later this week. And, I had only mentioned to him that I had interviews, but not where they were.

A few minutes after Elliot had left, Kate went out to go get us some dinner, and she came back with Chinese and a bottle of champagne. The tea cups had been the last thing that we'd packed in the kitchen boxes, so I dug those out and Kate filled them with champagne. "To new beginnings!" Kate exclaimed as we clinked our cups together and toasted to our new apartment.

* * *

The next afternoon, I met Remy for lunch not too far from the new apartment. "How was your move yesterday?"

"It went fairly well. Kate's boyfriend, Elliot, helped us with most of the heavy lifting and he helped us set up our TV, too."

"It sounds like a nice place. I'll have to come by sometime after you've unpacked."

"That's going to take forever, though."

"I just like to see people's houses when it actually looks like they've been lived-in. It gives me a sense of what that person is like, when it's filled with the little things that make a house a home." Remy laughed. "Jeez, with all of the cheese that just spewed from my mouth, I ought to be a cheese dispenser at a nacho stand!"

"Okay, that's a new one," I say with an easy laugh. As Remy launches into a story about somebody at the book store, I marvel at how easy it is to talk to him. I don't feel like I've got to hide behind emails and text messages with Remy in order to get my true feelings out. I don't stammer and blush awkwardly when I'm trying to talk to him face-to-face like this.

This is how real relationships are supposed to be, I realize after a while. I shouldn't be that intimidated by somebody that I'm dating. I know that Christian's "thing" was to instill fear into those he wanted to sexually dominate, but the more I think about it, the more glad that I am that I left him.

"Are you sure that you don't want to come see the apartment?"

"But I don't have your house-warming present."

"What? You didn't have to get me anything, Remy." Even though I know that Remy doesn't have the money to spare to buy me rare, first-edition books or a laptop, I can't help but go into a panic over the thought that he might have.

"It's just a painting that I had lying around my apartment; I thought that it would be nice to have some art for your new place."

"Oh." If Christian had given me a piece of art, it probably would have been the original Mona Lisa.

You really need to stop comparing Remy to Christian, Logical Reasoning whispers in my ear before she falls silent.

"Well maybe I could come over to your apartment and get it," I say. I am curious about where Remy lives.

"Alright. Is it okay if we take my truck, though? It'll be faster, and there isn't a lot of parking where I live." I agree, and we leave the restaurant and get into Remy's pick-up. While it's an older truck, it's at least young enough to be Wanda's son. That is, if cars can have children.

It isn't a long drive to the apartment building, and we park and walk inside. The building is like our new apartment building, and it was converted from a warehouse. But, Remy's building has more of a sense of it's origins, and the elevator doesn't even have a door; just a gate that you have to close yourself before you can get off at the floor.

As we ride up, I can't help but think of the last time that I was alone in an elevator with a hot guy. I'm not sure if I'm aroused by the thought or if I'm about ready to have a full-on panic attack.

But, before I can reach a decision either way, the elevator comes to a stop, and Remy pulls the protective gate open. Then, he leads me to a door, which he unlocks. I had been expecting an open studio-like apartment that was filled with art easels, canvases, and paint splatters on the red-brick walls and rough, wooden floors.

Instead, the room the front door opened to was just the kitchen, and it was oak with blue and white tile. The appliances were older, yet gave the room a well-rounded appearance of having a function rather than just for show.

"Hey, babe! Did you…" a woman maybe a couple years older than me exclaimed as she ran into the room. I felt my face heat up as I realized that there wasn't a stitch of clothing on her body. She paused when she saw us, but made no move to cover her nudity. "Oh. It's you, Rem." I didn't know if I should look away from her, look at her… and oh lord.

"Charlotte, would you care to put something on?" Remy asked her.

"You know how clothing stifles both my creativity, and Austin's, too. But, I will put something on while she's here." She flounced out of the room.

"Sorry. That's my roommate's girlfriend."

"I'm not his girlfriend! I'm his creative muse!" Charlotte called from the next room.

"I keep telling them that they need to be covered when I'm home, but the message doesn't seem to sink in. Can I get you something to drink?"

"No, I'm alright."

"I'll just… go get the painting." Remy left the kitchen via the same way that Charlotte had left the room. A moment later, Charlotte came back into the room, but this time, she was dressed in a gauzy robe that didn't exactly hide much, and she'd piled her bright red hair on top of her head in a messy bun.

"Hi, darling. Come and sit! Please! You look so awkward standing there by the door," Charlotte said as she perched on a bar stool. She patted the one next to her. I didn't exactly want to be that close to her near naked breasts (holy crap, were those even real?!), but I also didn't want to be rude.

I compromised and sat on the next stool over. I still didn't know where to look, so I settled for examining the wood grain on the counter top.

"So, you're Anastasia."

"Ana."

"Anastasia has such a… an aristocratic ring to it, wouldn't you agree?"

"Um…"

Before I could even think of how to respond to that, Charlotte was talking again. "You're just so pretty. You must have all of the boys falling for you."

"Um, not really."

"Ah, I see how it is. You don't settle for a boy, because you're waiting for a man."

"That's not-"

"Stop right there, my Russian princess! I can assure you right now that Remy is all the man that you will ever need!"

Oh god. This wasn't happening to me right now. Ground, swallow me whole. Charlotte only threw back her head and laughed.

"Charlotte, what are you telling Ana?" Remy said as he came back into his room. He had a rather large canvas in a bag. "And I thought that I told you to get dressed."

"I am dressed, darling!" Charlotte exclaimed as she held her arms wide for Remy's approval. He only frowned and closed his eyes, as if he was trying not to lose his temper.

"Charlotte, if I can still see both your nipples and your vagina, you are not dressed."

"Fine! You're such a prude, Remy!" She got up to go put something else on, and playfully swatted Remy's behind as she passed.

"What did she say to you?"

"Nothing!" I squeak out. I'm sure that my face is completely bright red at this point.

"Just ignore whatever she said. She seems to think that this is the 1960's and we live in a nudist colony." Remy rolled his eyes and put the canvas on the counter so that he could pull the bag off. The painting is of the Heart of Gold as it orbits a planet in space, and Remy painted the words "Space is big. Really big," in big, white letters across the lower right corner. "Do you like it?"

"Wow. It's really nice. Thank you. But… It's not normally what you paint."

"Sometimes I do paint stuff other than portraits and bowls of fruit. And I was in the mood to paint something from Hitchhiker." The door bangs open, and Charlotte comes into the room again. She's wearing jeans and an over-sized men's button-down shirt.

"Is this acceptable?" she asks.

"Yes, thank you," Remy says with a sigh. He started to put the canvas back into the bag so that we could leave.

"Oh no, are you leaving so soon?" Charlotte asked.

"Yeah. I've got to get back to work, and I brought Ana over here in my truck."

"Oh! It was so nice to meet you, Anastasia!" Charlotte exclaimed, and then she hugged me. "We're going to have a little get together on Wednesday; you should come."

"Ana doesn't want to play naked pictionary, Charlotte," Remy growled.

"Oh, no, darling! This is a fun party for Ana!"

"What? No! You don't have to throw me a party! Please!"

"Fine. But we will have a party to celebrate… International bookmark day!"

"You just made that up!" Remy complained.

"Fine, fine! I did!" Charlotte pulled a phone out of the breast pocket of her shirt and started to look something up.

"Let's go, before she gets any more crazy ideas," Remy whispered to me. I slid off the bar stool and started to follow Remy to the door, but then Charlotte spoke up.

"It's International Children's Day! How can you possibly miss out on celebrating International Children's Day, Ana?"

"Um, Char? None of our friends have any children," Remy said.

"That doesn't mean that we can't celebrate children," Charlotte said with a pout.

"Come on," Remy said. He handed me the bag and put his hand on my waist as he guided me out of the apartment and to the elevator. "I am really sorry about that. And whatever Charlotte said to you."

"She just said that I was pretty, and that my name was… um… aristocratic," I said as we waited for the elevator to come up.

"She has an odd obsession with the Russian royal family. She's insistent that they all survived, but went into hiding."

"Oh. Did they hide out with Elvis?" I ask, and Remy laughs.

"Probably," he says as the elevator comes up from downstairs. There's a man wearing a suit, but unlike Christian, his suit is messy and wrinkled, as if he slept it in for several days.

"Yo, Rem," the man says when the elevator stops. The man yanks the gate open. "Is this Ana?"

"Yes. Ana, this is Adam, my roommate."

"It's nice to finally get to meet you, Ana," Adam says and we shake hands.

"I'm sorry, but I've really got to get Ana back to her car now so that I can go to work."

"Fine. Hope to see you again soon. Ooh, we should have a party!"

"Not gonna happen, dude!" Remy says as he guides me into the elevator and presses the ground floor button. "Listen, you don't have to feel obligated to attend any of Char's parties, okay? They're just an excuse for her and her friends to get naked and get drunk."

"Naked pictionary?"

"Yes. Your partner is the canvas and they get to lick the edible paint off from you."

"I didn't know that you could eat paint."

"Well, it's not like the kind of paint that you'd want to use for something like that," Remy said as he pointed to the bag I was carrying. The elevator arrived at the ground floor, and he yanked the gate open before we left the building and got into his car. "But it's this special kind of paint. It's made to be eaten. Well, spread onto your partner and then licked off."

Hello, what's this? My inner goddess chimes in. Forget whats-his-face and his whips; edible paint is something that I could get behind!

And the thought of licking something off from Remy's stomach had me a little hot and bothered, actually.

"Sorry, I've really got to run," Remy said as he pulled into the parking lot of the sub shop where Wanda was still parked. "I'll call you later?"

"Yeah, okay." I hopped out of his truck, and waved as he drove off.

* * *

"Ooh, you didn't tell me that you were going shopping after your date?" Kate exclaimed when I came back home.

"I didn't buy this; Remy gave it to me."

"Even better!" Kate grabbed one end and helped me pull the bag off from the painting. Then, she looked at it. "I don't get it."

"It's the Heart of Gold, which is the first ship to ever have an infinite improbability drive built in it," I explained. "But then the president of the universe wanted the ship, so he stole it, which was probably just as well, because it picked up Arthur and Ford when they were shot out of the Volgon ship and were floating in space. And this is a quote from the book."

"Ana, I don't know half of what you just said. Let's put it… Um…" Kate twirled around the apartment with the painting as she looked for a likely place to put it. "Ooh, right here!" She held the painting up by the wall in the dining room area, under the table. "Remy will be sure to see it when he comes over." Kate put it down on the table and skipped back over to me. "Speaking of which, when is he coming over?"

"He said that he wanted to come and see the place only after we'd unpacked."

"Okay! What are you waiting for, Ana!" Kate steered me towards my new room. "Get unpacking! Sheesh!"

"Fine, fine!" I started to move some of the boxes around, but before I could open any of them, my phone rang. "Huh, it's Remy."

"Well, what are you waiting for! Answer it!"

"Hello?"

"Hello, darling, it's Charlotte."

"Um, why do you have Remy's phone?"

"Whoops, sticky fingers," Charlotte said with a laugh. "Listen, I didn't mean to frighten you away earlier. Maybe you are good for Remy with your prudeness. We don't have to play naked pictionary." The thought of Remy licking body paint off from my back-side had my face bright red again. "But, I would like to get to know you better. If you would like, that is. So I was thinking, you, me, Remy, and Adam could go to a hibachi restaurant. I know a really nice one that's not too far away from our apartment. So? What do you say, Ana?"

"Um, is this restaurant clothing optional?"

"What?" Kate mouthed to me.

"No; you're in luck, Ana, because Adam and I will be fully clothed."

"Okay, good. I was a bit worried about that. Well, that sounds okay with me, but I guess that I'll have to talk it over with Remy."

"I'll give him his phone back when he gets home and tell him of our plans. Well, I'll guess that I'll be seeing you soon, Ana!"


	6. Chapter 6

Hello my pretties. Thank you for clicking onto chapter six.

As always, please let me know if you spot any hinky grammar.

Thank you for the reviews that everybody has given me thus-far, and thank you for your continued support of what started out as just simple frustration and annoyance.

-Kitty

* * *

I had a couple job interviews on Monday, and then a few more on Tuesday. I really felt like every job had a lot to offer me, and each one could open up so many different doors for me in their own way. But, a lot of them were really big publishing companies, and even though I'm sure that I stood an equal chance atone of them just as much as the smaller firms, I knew that if I took a job for them, that I would be adrift in the massive sea that was the company.

But, I suppose that that was why I had applied for internships at so many different companies: so that I could have my pick of jobs. Of course, what it really boiled down to was if any of them wanted me. I know that I shouldn't get my hopes up until I get the call-back, but some of them did seem like they would be interested in having me.

I went home from my last interview, and dropped my purse on the couch. "Hey. How were your interviews?" Kate asked. She and Elliot were camped out on the sofa. Kate was curled into Elliot's side, and he was absently flicking through the channels.

"Interesting. I hope that I hear back from at least one of them. I'm a bit anxious to get to work on something."

"Other than unpacking?"

"Other than unpacking, yes."

"Well, at least you've got your big date tomorrow!"

"Big date?" Elliot asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. Remy's roommate and his girlfriend are taking Ana and Remy out for hibachi tomorrow night."

"Oh, that sounds like fun. Can we go?"

"What?" I blink in shock at Elliot. Is he serious?

"Those places are only fun if you can get up a big group of people to join you. Come on, Ana; what time and where?" Elliot asked. I told him.

"I'll let Remy know that you're coming, in case Charlotte made reservations or something."

* * *

"Hi, Ana. Wow. You look… Wow."

"Thanks." I had borrowed another dress from Kate (I seriously needed to supplement my wardrobe with some evening attire). This one was a pink cocktail dress; I felt it was overly clingy, but Kate insisted that it was just what I needed. Remy was wearing a button-down shirt and khaki pants, but in a way that made work-day formal into super casual. "You remember my roommate, Kate, right?"

"Yes. Charlotte was completely thrilled when you said that she wanted to come," Remy said with a cheeky grin. "Speaking of which…" I looked over to my left, and saw Charlotte and Adam walking up to join us. Charlotte was dressed in the most beautiful kimono that I had ever seen, but she still somehow managed to make herself look like a very expensive call girl because most of her breasts were hanging out of the Japanese robe. Adam was wearing a freshly pressed suit, I was pleased to see.

"Anastasia, darling!" Charlotte exclaimed as soon as she was close enough. She grabbed my upper arms and kissed both of my cheeks.

"Hi, Charlotte. This is my roommate, Kate."

"Kate!" Charlotte repeated the gesture on Kate like they were old friends. Kate acted like this was a perfectly acceptable away to greet a complete stranger. "And this is my boyfriend, Adam."

"So, we're just waiting for your boyfriend, then?" Remy asked.

"Yeah. He said that he would be here. After all, he's the one who wanted to come."

"We can wait a few minutes, and then we should get in before all of the good tables are taken," Charlotte said as she glanced at her watch.

"How were your interviews?" Remy asked me.

"I think that they went fairly well. But, I guess that I'll just have to wait and see."

"Well, if you could have your pick of the places that you interviewed at, where would you like to work?" Remy asks.

"I liked Seattle Independent Publishing the most. It felt like the kind of place where I could really be myself."

"I hope that you get the job there, then."

"Heeey! Maybe Remy will have to sell some book that you had your nasty way with at SIP!" Charlotte chimes in. She leans on Remy's shoulder and offers me a cheeky grin.

"Ana's got great taste in books, so I'm sure that whatever book she leaves her stamp of approval on will fly off the shelves," Kate says.

"And you? What are you doing now that you've just graduated?" Charlotte turns her big, green eyes onto Kate.

"Oh, my dad lined up a job for me with the Seattle Times."

"Wow. Big-shot. Will I be reading your work in the paper?" Adam asked.

"Probably not at first, but I hope so," Kate says with a charming smile. Her phone chirps, and she turns away from us to see what it is. Remy offers me a hesitant, shy smile, which I return.

Awkward silence falls over our group; Adam coughs, but I'm not sure if it's because there's a tickle in his throat or he's trying to alleviate how suddenly weird that things have gotten.

Charlotte turns so that she's facing the same direction as Kate is, puts her arms over her head, and moves her hips like she's dancing to music that only she can hear. She bumps into Remy, which makes him stumble a couple of steps closer towards me. He turns around to glare at her, but she only offers him another cheeky grin.

"Elliot was caught up with something, but he's on his way right now," Kate says at last. "He says that we should go in and start without him."

"Let's do this!" Charlotte screamed as Adam opened the door for us. We went inside and were seated without too much of a wait.

"Charlotte, my darling muse," said the chef as he came out to greet us. "It has been much too long."

"Hey, I thought that you were MY muse?" Adam says with a pout.

"I can inspire beautiful artwork and delicious Japanese cuisine," Charlotte pointed out. We gave our orders to the chef, and he started to prepare the food at the grill that was attached to our table.

I'd never been to a place like this before, and I was completely mesmerized by the way that the man twirled the knifes around, rearranged the food on the grill, and served it up on a plate. Who knew that preparing food could be so fascinating?

Elliot came in halfway through the performance, which was great, because we got to watch the chef prepare something for Elliot, too. "Sorry I'm late, guys," Elliot said after he'd asked the waitress for a beer. "But hey! I didn't miss the entire show!"

I was a little curious about where Elliot had been; was he doing something with his brother? Holy crap, what if it was about me? I still didn't know if I should go ahead and file for a restraining order or not.

And Elliot didn't offer any reason why he had been so late, and nobody asked him. "Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?" Remy whispered to me after the chef had left. Charlotte, Adam, Kate, and Elliot were roaring with laughter over something that Charlotte had said.

"It's nothing."

"No, it's not. What is it?"

"It's just that Elliot is Christian's brother," I whispered to him. "And I don't know if I want to go forward with the restraining order or not."

"Well, he obviously thinks that he can separate himself from his brother for at least a few hours to hang around with you. And just because you broke up with his brother doesn't mean that he has to stop seeing Kate."

"Hey, what are you two whispering about over there! Waitress, can you bring me another beer, please?" Charlotte is overly loud, but I thank her for bringing me back to the present. I just want some time where I don't have to think about Christian Grey and whips and torture.

* * *

I'm starting to sense a pattern here. Add in some overly out-going people, mix in some couples, add alcohol, and you get an overly tipsy me.

I can't say for sure, but something tells me that if this dinner had just been me and Remy, I probably wouldn't have gotten this drunk. At least I don't feel like I'm about to a) throw up or b) pass out, which is a good sign. Maybe I did learn my lesson the first time and didn't drink so much. But also, maybe it's easier to monitor myself when there are beer bottles in front of me.

Kate has crawled onto Elliot's lap and they're now making out in front of the entire restaurant. And I have no idea where Charlotte and Adam have gone.

"Er, maybe we should go," Remy says quietly. I nod in agreement, and he puts some money down on the table before he leads me out the door. The fresh air helps to clear my head. Remy helps me into his truck.

"Where are we going?" I ask after a bit.

"My place."

"Why?"

"Because the last time you got drunk, you drunk-dialed a stalker and got yourself into a mess."

"Where did Charlotte and Adam go?"

"Lord knows. They probably won't come back until the wee hours of the morning, though." Remy pulled into the parking lot of his building, and I got out on my own.

"I think that maybe I don't want to file a restraining order anymore," I say as I follow Remy inside.

"Why's that?"

"I think that Christian is just going to fight this tooth and nail. I just sort of want to play that game that small children play… If I can't see you, then you can't see me. Maybe if I ignore Christian, he'll just go away."

"Ana, you're a little drunk, and you're not thinking straight. You shouldn't be making decisions like this right now." We get into the elevator, and Remy closes the gate before we start to move.

"I really want to kiss you right now," I whisper. Remy gives me a startled look. Then, he moves closer and gently, hesitantly, pressed his lips to mine. It wasn't some dominating, power-hungry kiss, but rather, sweet and innocent. It was the kind of kiss that should have been my first.

His lips were slightly chapped and moist, and his stubble was scratchy and rough against my face. We pulled apart when the elevator came to a stop at Remy's floor. "S-shall we go inside now?"

"Yeah." I nervously pulled away from him before I followed him off the elevator and into his apartment. Once inside, he turns the lights on, and then goes to get a glass of water, which he puts on the counter in front of me.

"Drink," he commands. I flinch at the sharp tone in his voice; Remy noticed it, and the hard look on his face softened at once. "Please. You're already going to have a hang over in the morning."

"Your tone of voice really scared me just now," I whisper as I take the glass.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It's just that Adam requires a firm touch when he's drunk, and I forgot who I was with for a moment." I observe Remy over the top of the glass as I drink the water. Now I regret that I drank so much, because I would really like to fuck him.

Whoa. That's new. I would have never even though something like that before.

Maybe I should lie down somewhere until I'm not so drunk anymore.

I drain the water and set the glass back down on the counter. "Can I lie down for a while?"

"Yeah. On a bed or will a sofa do?"

"Um…" Holy hell, was he offering me his bed? If I hadn't been drunk, I would have said sofa in a heart-beat. But then I found myself saying, "Bed." I moved from around the counter, and followed Remy down a dark hall. He opened up a room, and gestured to the bed.

You are in Remy's room. You are in Remy's room, my Inner Goddess kept chanting while doing a saucy little shake of her hips. But, I was a little to unfocused right now to really take in my surroundings. I fell onto the bed, and was soon asleep.

* * *

It was dark when I awoke, and I paused for a moment to try and figure out what had woken me up. I still felt a little bit fuzzy, but I had probably already metabolized most of the beer by now.

I sat up and looked around Remy's room. It was dark, but I was able to make out the shapes of an art easel that was under a sheet, and there were several large canvases like what Remy had given me for our new place stacked up against the far wall.

An overly-loud giggle broke through the otherwise silent night, followed by some rhythmic thumps. Oh no, where Charlotte and Adam…? I quickly left the room because I didn't want to stay and listen to them having sex.

I didn't know where Remy was, but I absently walked back into the kitchen. There was a glow from the TV that spilled onto the floor of the white tile floor from the living room, so I went in there and saw that Remy was asleep on the couch. I walked over to him and shook his shoulder to wake him up.

"Oh, Ana. Are you feeling better?" Remy asked as he sat up and ran a hand through his hair.

"Yes. I shouldn't drink so much next time."

"Yeah, probably." Remy patted the seat next to him. "Sit." I sat and stared absently at the infomercial (and it can be yours for 20 low payments of 19.95!) "Do you remember what you said about the restraining order earlier?"

"Yeah…" I whispered as I looked down at my hands. "And I still stand by my earlier statement that I really don't want to drag this into the courts. I'd rather just pretend like none of that ever happened."

"So long as he doesn't try to break into your apartment or something."

"I know that he's dangerous, but I think that I would only be incurring his wrath even more if I decide to press charges."

"Dangerous? How?"

"I-I can't tell you," I stammered as I twisted my fingers together. Remy closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

"Even if you hadn't signed that stupid NDA, I'm not even sure if I'd want to know what that guy is up to. It sounds like he was into some really messed up stuff. I don't know why a sweet woman like you would be interested in those things."

"I didn't run screaming for the hills because I was curious about what he had to offer. But, the stalking part aside, I think that the reality of the issue is that we wanted really different things from a relationship, and it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway. But then he kept giving me things. He gave me a couple of rare, first-edition copies of Tess D'Urbervilles, and a laptop that hadn't even come out yet. I feel like such a whore for taking his things in exchange for sex."

"Okay, so I might have only been in one long-term relationship, but it's a little expected for your boyfriend to give you gifts. But not if it makes you uncomfortable. And both of those gifts sound completely over-the-top."

"I've told you a lot about my only relationship," I whisper. "Can you tell me about yours?"

"Yeah. We were in junior high when we met, but we didn't start to date until our sophomore year of high school. We were inseparable… and it sometimes got to the point where if I went somewhere without Jessica, people would always ask where my right side was. You know, because she was always at my side. And by the time that we were seniors, I never even thought twice about where I wanted to apply to school, and I never questioned our future. I just always thought that we would be together forever. I didn't even mind having to shell out major money in order to pay for WSU, because I would be with her.

"So, we get to the dorms for our freshman year at WSU. And this is the first time that either of us have lived away from home, so I think that you've got to keep that in mind, okay? And I hadn't even settled into my dorm on move-in day when Jess texts me; she wants to take a break from 'us'. Obviously, I'm upset, because she was my entire life. I don't know what I would do if she were to leave me. And in the course of a few rather horrible texts that I regretted almost as soon as I sent them, the entire future that I had planned out fell apart. I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore now that I wasn't with Jess."

"I'm sensing a giant 'but' in your story."

"There is. So, it's been a year since Jess left me. I took all of the freshmen, gen-ed classes like you're supposed to, but I wasn't quite sure what else to do with my life. It's nearing the end of the spring semester, and I'm just about ready to call my parents and tell them that I'm going to come home until I can figure out what direction that I want to go in, and Jessica calls me. She's completely in tears, I can't understand a damned thing that she says, but eventually I figure out that she's at the hospital. Despite the emotional wringer that she's put me through, I rush over there. She's completely black and blue, with a broken arm, several broken ribs, and a concussion. Some loser that she was dating beat her to the point where she was completely unconscious and his roommate called 911.

"To make a long story short, we agreed to try it again, despite my initial unease at the entire situation. And despite a rather rocky start to our relationship, 2.0, we eventually got back into the swing of our relationship from how we were before. Only, this time it was better, because we were no longer in constant fear of our parents walking in on us. I would say 'you know how it is', but… you somehow managed to skip the awkward teen dating stage and move right into adult relationships." Remy rolled his eyes.

"But anyway, fast forward a year from the start of our relationship, 2.0. We're about to go back home for summer break– and I mean literally about to leave— when Jessica comes and she tells me that she's pregnant. Of course, I'm completely freaking out about this, because I'm barely 20, and I've been living on the support of my parents and student loans this entire time; I can't afford to have a baby. I ask Jessica if she's sure, and after a bit she says no. And then…" Remy paused, leaned back on the sofa, tilted his head back so that he was looking up at the ceiling, and ran a hand through his hair out of frustration.

"The completely worst thing that I have ever heard in my entire life. She isn't even sure if it's mine or not. Because ever since we agreed to get back together, she had been sleeping around. And the potential gene pool of this baby wasn't even just me and one other guy. I was a lot of guys. Like, maybe she just decided for fun to sleep with the entire floor of the boy's dorms one night. And the the next floor the night after."

"What did you do?"

"I got out of the car, pulled her suitcase out from the trunk, left it sitting on the curb, and just drove off. I didn't look back, and I never talked to her again. Oh, and I didn't even tell you the best part. So, it's hard not to be with somebody for that long and not be friends with their friends. Jessica's best friend send me a brief email later that summer that basically said that Jessica thought that if she acted like she was pregnant, she could milk all of her boyfriends for the things that she wanted. But, apparently, everybody else pretty much just abandoned her. When I asked the friend why Jessica caved and said that she'd been sleeping around, the friend had no clue, because that wasn't Jess's MO in the entire pregnancy thing."

"I don't know this girl, so I can only guess, but maybe she felt guilty about lying to you, since you two were together for such a long time. You must have meant something to her."

"Maybe," Remy agreed with an absent shrug. "I just found it hard to trust people after that. Like, if somebody that I was that close with could do something like that to me, what's a complete stranger going to do? I couldn't be in a long-term relationship after that, and I ended up sleeping around a lot for the last two years of college." Remy looked over to me. "Don't worry, though; I was kicked of that habit when I woke up with a major hang-over in bed with Adam. And only Adam. Kind of a wake-up call for me."

"I'm glad. But… why me?"

"I don't know. I'm not quite sure what I was hoping for when I asked you for your number, but I think that hearing you give your statement at the police station made me realize that I could trust you, because you blindly allowed me into the room, even though you didn't know me very well at all."


	7. Chapter 7

As always, please let me know if you spot any wonky grammar.

Also, there be sexy-times ahead. I hope that it's up to everybody's somewhat exhaustive standards; I haven't put up a sex scene in a really, REALLY long time.

* * *

The room is filled with silence, except for the TV, which continues to tell us about some marvelous… thing. "Why were you sleeping on the sofa anyway?"

"It seemed a little presumptuous of me to just crawl into bed with you when you were drunk." Remy shrugged absently. "Besides, how in the world am I supposed to go another day without the Chop Ninja in my life? I've gotta have it." We laugh, and I lean into his side. The bravery that made me ask for a kiss in the elevator has now left me, and I'm too afraid to invite him to join me in his bed for the rest of the night.

"I don't think that I'm drunk anymore," I whisper after a moment. Remy turns his head and kisses me sweetly on the lips. It's just like in the elevator, but this time, his kiss holds some unrealized emotion behind it. Like he's waiting for something.

"Do you want to go back to bed now?" Remy whispers, his lips barely touching mine. I nod, completely unable to speak. Remy stands, turns the TV off, and then offers me his hand. I take it and stand, and let him lead me back to his bedroom.

It's silent for a moment after Remy shuts his bedroom door, and then, "MAYDAY! MAYDAY!"

"Arf arf arf!"

"What are they doing?" I ask in near-horror.

"You don't want to know," Remy says quickly.

"Wait a second… Did you and Adam…?"

"Oh god, no! We just had a male-male-female three-way. Charlotte was making breakfast, and that's why we were naked in bed together."

"So you had sex with Charlotte?"

"I was honestly to drunk to remember anything. That's why I started to freak out when I woke up next to Adam. But both Char and Adam are the kind of people who will have sex with anything that moves. And things that don't move. And once Charlotte was arrested for dry-humping the base of the Space Needle. But, they respect your boundaries, and you couldn't ask for nicer people."

"Why do you live with them? Isn't it awkward?"

"Not really. Charlotte's family is just super, mega rich. This is actually her apartment, but she lets me live here, rent-free, because I'm a broke-ass artist."

"Don't you have a job?"

"Do you honestly think that I earn a wage that I could life off of at the bookstore?" Remy asked with a cocked eyebrow. "I'm broke and I live with two people that I once had a three-some with." I shrugged absently, turned around, and sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you want something else to sleep in? That can't be comfortable."

"I guess. It's not even my dress, and maybe Kate would be angry if I got it all wrinkled."

"Why don't you have your own dress?"

"I'm not the kind of person who enjoys wearing dresses," I say. Remy tosses me a t-shirt, but I can't catch it. "Unzip me?" I stand and point to the under-arm zipper. Once he has unzipped me, I pull the shirt on over the top of the dress and then pull the dress off. I know that it's silly, but I want to leave some things to the imagine early on in my relationship with Remy.

I get into bed again just as Charlotte and Adam start up again. "MAYDAY! MAYDAY! WE'RE GOING DOWN INTO A NOSE-DIVE!" Charlotte screams out, immediately followed by Adam braying like a donkey. Remy pounds on the wall between the two rooms.

"Keep it down! Some of us are trying to sleep!" he yelled.

"Sleep. Riiiight," Charlotte says, but then we don't hear anything else, so maybe they are trying to be more considerate of us. Remy gets into bed and we lay on our sides, facing one another but not touching.

"Word association game," Remy whispers after a moment. "Say the first thing that pops into your head."

"Why?"

"Peoples barriers usually aren't up when they're tired, but they aren't so completely down as when you're drunk. I want to know some things about you."

"You know a lot about me."

"No, I know about what that guy did to you. Or rather, what you can say without breaching the NDA. I want to know this Ana, not that broken Ana."

"Okay."

"What would you consider to be the most important thing in a relationship?"

"Not to be beaten."

"Ana! I thought that you said that this guy didn't physically hurt you!"

"He didn't!" I insist quickly. "A-at least not like that." Remy is silent for a really long time.

"I sure hope that the NDA doesn't have some clause in it about you giving enough clues to another person for them to figure out what it is that's so potentially hurtful to Christian that he'd need an NDA in the first place."

"Please don't say anything. He might go after you in court."

"I know enough to keep my mouth shut. But, Ana, domestic abuse is nothing to joke around about. I personally am of a mind that it goes without saying that you don't beat people, with or without their permission. If this guy got his kicks off by smacking around girls who were in no position to speak out against him, then I'm going to leave that to somebody who actually has the money to take him on."

"It's not really like that either."

"He hurts people because it gives him a hard on."

"What? How did you figure that out?"

"It's honestly not that hard, Ana. There are some people who get aroused by watching other people in pain, and there are some people who are aroused by the mere sight of feet. We all tick differently, and you just have to figure out what turns you on the most and find that one person who fits into your kink the best. If you can't stand to be in pain, then being with somebody who enjoys hitting women is probably not the best relationship for you."

Holy crap, is this guy some kind of mind-reader or something? That is exactly what I needed to hear.

"So, I suppose that the next logical question is what do you consider to be the most important thing in a relationship, besides not being beaten?"

"Romance."

"Okay, but what's your definition of romance?"

"Flowers and midnight serenades outside of the window and cuddling."

"So you want me to do a Say Anything scene and stand outside of your apartment with a boombox blasting In Your Eyes at midnight?"

"I'm not sure if I'd go that far…"

"In your eyes! The light, the heat! In your eyes! I am complete!"

"S-stop!" I laugh.

"In your eyes! I see the doorway to a thousand churches!"

"Stop it!" I say again. Remy pulls me to him and kisses me roughly. Then, he pulls away from me and gently kisses my forehead before he tucks me against his chest. I curl up with my head under his chin, and close my eyes.

It's very soothing to listen to his heartbeat, and I soon find myself drifting back to sleep.

* * *

I feel the warm sunlight on the back of my eyelids, but I'm not quite ready to wake up yet. I'm still in Remy's arms, like how I had fallen asleep last night, but our legs are entwined under a sheet. I've never felt so comfortable in my life.

But wait. A pricking feeling tells me that something isn't quite right. My eyes snap open and I shriek as I realize that both Charlotte and Adam are sitting on the bar stools that they've put in Remy's room. They're casually dressed, and eating cereal like they enjoy watching Remy sleep all of the time.

I yelp wakes Remy up at once, who observes what's going on in a single second. "Jesus fucking Christ guys! What the hell is wrong with you!" he yells at them.

"We didn't know that you were such a romantic, Remy," Charlotte says around a mouthful of Wheaties. She swallows what's in her mouth and looks over to Adam. After a beat, they break out into song.

"In your eyes! The light, the heat! In your eyes! I am complete!" My face flushes when I realize that they must have heard us last night. Or at least Remy's singing. Oh god, how mortifying. I wish that the floor would open up and I would fall to the ground floor.

"Get out!" Remy yells as he jumps to his feet. "Get out! Get out!" He chases them from his room. With frustration, he slams his door shut. "I am really sorry, Ana."

"Maybe I should just go now."

"What? No!" Charlotte exclaims from the other side of the door. "Adam and I promise to never bother you two ever again so long as you don't leave!" Remy runs a hand through his hair in exasperation and looks at his alarm clock.

"I have to go to work," he says.

"Just because you've got to leave doesn't mean Ana has to!" Charlotte protests. I shoot an unamused look at the door.

"No. I have to go home now. Kate's going to be leaving in a little while anyway. I have to make sure that she's ready."

"Okay, fine. But make sure that you come back, though! Remy!" Charlotte rattles the doorknob, but it won't open because Remy has locked the door. "Make sure that she comes back!" Remy rolls his eyes and pulls on a clean pair of pants before he puts on his shoes. I pull the cocktail dress under Remy's shirt, and then pull the shirt off before I ask for Remy to zip me up.

Then, we leave the room and wordlessly pass Charlotte and Adam, who try to look like they haven't been spying on us from the hall. "Please come back later," Charlotte mouths to me as I pass her. I ignore her.

The drive back to my apartment is silent except for me giving directions to Remy. When we pull into the parking lot of my apartment building, Remy puts his truck into park and looks at me. "I'm really sorry about this. I'll remember to lock the door next time."

"I think that Charlotte was really upset that I was leaving. She told me not to go."

"I know. She's worried about how I haven't had a girlfriend since I moved in with them. She's really happy that I met you."

"I'm really happy that I met you, too," I whisper shyly. Remy smiles, cups my chin in his hand, and kisses me softly.

"I'll text you later."

"Okay." I get out of his truck and wave at him until he backs out of the parking space. Then, I head inside.

Kate is in her usual last-minute panic to pack her things, but Elliot is simply lounging on the sofa and watching some early-morning sports recap. But, Kate pauses her whirl-wind of activity to give me a sly smile when I come into the apartment.

"Well, well, well. Look who just got home."

"It's not like that, Kate," I protest. "I was drunk, and you two were all over one another. We went back to Remy's place, and I passed out on his bed for a while. And then Char and Adam were having… um, well, I think that they were having sex, but I don't know. And then Remy and I talked for a while and went back to bed."

"Wait, I'm more curious about the sex lives of Adam and Charlotte right now."

"I honestly don't know what they were doing. It involved a lot of Charlotte screaming 'mayday' and Adam making various animal noises. Remy told me not to ask."

"Well, I enjoyed their company last night," Kate said before she vanished into her room. "I hope that we can see them again."

"I'm sure that we will," Elliot called out to her. "Right, Ana?" He winked at me. I flushed and went into Kate's room.

"Okay, Elliot isn't listening, so spill!"

"We didn't have sex. We just talked about a bunch of stuff. Remy sang to me. And when we woke up this morning, Char and Adam were watching us sleep," I said. Kate made a disgusted face.

"Okay, I guess I can see how listening to those two getting it on would be rather off-putting. But this apartment's going to be empty for two weeks, so you guys can be as loud as you want."

"I don't know if I'm ready for that step yet. I felt like things were too rushed with Christian, and maybe if we'd gone a lot slower and talked things through, we wouldn't be in this mess right now."

"I don't know the details of what you two talked about when you weren't love-making, but something tells me that if he was that possessive after having known you for all of two weeks, then things probably wouldn't have gone better with him even if you had done that. I didn't really talk to him much last night, but he seems to really make you happy, which is important in a relationship. It doesn't matter if he's not rich like Christian. As long as you two are happy, then that's all that really matters. But, are you happy, Ana?"

"He offered to come to the apartment at midnight and play In Your Eyes on a boombox last night."

"Okay, I'm lost. What?"

"It's from that classic… You know what, never mind. Remy makes me happy because he's trying to figure out what I want in a relationship. Which is something that Christian never wanted to do. It was all about him and his gratification."

"Damn right. Orgasms are nice, but you can't just have sex 24/7. I mean, I'd like to, but we can't do that because we'd be so tired all of the time." We laugh. "Anyway, shoo! I've still got a bunch of stuff to pack!"

"Alright! I'm going to go take a shower and then I'll be ready to drive you two to the airport."

* * *

"Thanks for coming over, despite how unpacked that we still are."

"It's okay. I sort of don't want to deal with Charlotte right now, either. I've put up with a lot of her crap over the years, but that seriously crosses a line." Remy holds up a DVD box of the 1981 TV show of Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy. "Tonight's five-star entertainment."

I hold up a slice of pizza. "Tonight's fine cuisine." I grab paper plates and napkins and move the pizza to the coffee table in the living room while Remy gets the DVD player ready.

Then, we curl up on the sofa and watch as Arthur Dent is dragged halfway around the galaxy by Ford Prefect after the earth is blown up. It's even more amusing to see the bad special effects of the old television series, and Remy keeps telling me behind the scenes tidbits.

As interesting as Christian was to be with, he isn't "pizza and bad TV night" material. As the first episode ends and the next begins automatically, I recall what Remy told me last night. The first part is finding out that you like to have your toes licked, and the second is finding somebody who likes to lick your toes. (Well, metaphorically speaking anyway.)

What I like to do is this, and Christian probably wouldn't have enjoyed this as much. But Remy does.

He may not be 'the one', but he is here, and he's pretty damned close, my Inner Goddess says as she taps her foot impatiently.

I lean into Remy's side, and he puts his arm around me before he turns his head to kiss me briefly. But I'm not satisfied with a simple kiss; I want more from him. I wind my fingers through his hair and he parts his lips so that our tongues can touch. His arm goes from around my shoulders to around my waist, and then he pulls me onto his lap so that I'm sitting astride him with my legs on either side of his.

Remy pulls back and brushes the hair away from my face. "Is this what you want?"

"Yes," I whisper before I kiss him again. He gently nibbles on my lower lip, before his hands slide up my back, under my shirt. His fingers run up and down my back in some sort of playful pattern, before he grips the edge of my t-shirt. I raise my arms above my head and he pulls it off.

Remy playfully bites my neck before he runs his tongue over the spot where he just bit, and then leaves a gentle kiss to the area before he starts the process again, lower, and lower. Each bite is more pleasure than pain, each pass of his tongue leaves me wanting more and more, and every time his lips press against my too-hot skin, I feel the desire pool in my groin.

Finally, he reaches the top of my breasts, and the sensation is just completely overwhelming. Remy runs his tongue along the swell of my left breast, where the cup of my bra ends. He reaches around my back again and fumbles with the clasp of my bra for a moment before it comes undone. He then slowly pushes the left strap down and leaves a trail of kisses for every inch of skin that the strap passes over. When the strap falls down my arm, Remy then turns to my right strap and starts the entire process all over again.

But then, the bra falls lose, and I pull it off and drape it over the back of the sofa where it is soon completely forgotten about. Remy cups my breasts in his hands, and runs his thumbs gently over my nipples, which are slightly hard because of the air conditioning and my arousal. He lightly nips at the skin just above my areola, and then he looks directly into my eyes as he slowly runs his tongue over where he just bit.

"Remy…" My voice is low and husky with my arousal. I squirm on his lap to try and relieve the building ache inside of me, but as I move, I realize that I am sitting right over his erect penis. Despite the fact that it is through two layers of jeans and our various undergarments, we both gasp out loud at the contact. Remy buries his hands in my hair and kisses me on the lips again.

He wordlessly urges me to stand, and then he stands and kisses me once again. "Bedroom?" he whispers, his lips millimeters away from my own. I take his hand and lead him down the hall to my new room. Once inside the dark room, Remy abruptly picks me up. He holds me by the back of my legs, and I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him until he puts me down on my back on the bed.

I try to sit up, but Remy wordlessly pushes me back down, and starts to trail wet kisses down the middle of my throat. The trail continues down past my clavicle, between my breasts, and straight to my belly button. He runs his tongue along the rim of my birth scar before he continues his tantalizing trip down to where I want him to be the most.

But before he even reached the top of my jeans, he sat up and pulled away from me. I whimpered in protest; I'm not quite sure how much more of this I can take. Remy gets off the bed and kneels down on the ground before he picks up my left foot; both of my feet hang off the edge of the bed. He slowly unties the shoelace on my converse, pulls it off, and then peels my sock off. He repeats the process on my other foot.

Then, he ran his hands up my inner legs, his hands barely touching me. His non-touch had me more on fire than if he had put his hands directly onto me. But then, about an inch away from my dripping vagina, he stopped his movement and his hands went instead to undo the button on my jeans.

After Remy undid the zip, he then grabbed both pant legs of my jeans and started to tug. I slide down a fraction of an inch so that I can brace my feet against the floor in order to lift my hips up to help pull my pants off. Because I'm wearing tighter jeans, my panties slide with my pants. After a couple more tugs, Remy lifts his hands, hooks his thumbs into the waistband of both jeans and panties, and pulls them off past my knees. I then kick both of them off onto the ground.

Remy comes back up to sit on the edge of the bed. For a moment, he just stares down at me, and then he reaches up to brush some hair away from my forehead. I grab his hand and lightly kiss the palm of his hand before I slowly kiss each of his fingertips. Remy leans down and kisses me on the lips again.

Remy runs his fingers through my pubic hair, before his fingers dip down and lightly touches my outer labia. "R-remy. Please." My voice is a hoarse croak. His fingers delve into my inner labia, and I gasp loudly. His middle finger slowly starts to rub up and down my clit.

I can't take this anymore. I close my eyes, and brightly colored lights flash frantically behind my eyelids. I need to hold onto something or else I'm certain that I'll just go completely mad. I scramble to hold onto the fitted sheet that I'm lying on, but it's too tight against the mattress. I curl my fingers against my palm instead, and feel as my fingernails dig into my skin.

My entire body convulses wildly, and there's nothing that I can do to stop my erratic movements. But I had been wishing for this from the moment that Remy first kisses me.

Not in the living room as we watched Hitchhiker's Guide (shoot, did we turn the DVD off?) but yesterday, in the elevator.

The lights slow to a crawl now that I've come down off from my orgasm, and I feel like I can open my eyes without feeling too overwhelmed.

* * *

Ah-ha-ha. Feedback loved. -Kitty


	8. Chapter 8

Thank you for your reviews. Yes, I am very evil, but it made me feel good to hear that so many people enjoyed the scene. It will continue below, and there will be others in the future.

As always, please let me know if the grammar needs to be fixed.

* * *

I stared into Remy's eyes, which I could barely see the color of because it was so dark in the room. He leaned down, kissed me, and wrapped his arms around my waist. I pulled away from him to ask a burning question, "Why are you still dressed?"

"Good question." He moved away from me and pulled his t-shirt off over his head. I reached up from where I lay on the bed and tentatively put my hand on his bare chest. He wasn't super fit like Christian was, but he wasn't bad too look at, either. There was a noticeable difference of coloration from his neck and arms to his torso; he was somebody who only went outside fully clothed.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows and then I sat up fully with my legs tucked under me so that I could explore his chest with my fingers. Unlike with Christian, Remy didn't seem to mind my careful, innocent touches. I slowly ran my fingers through his dark chest hair; there wasn't a lot, just enough to make him seem a little bit more masculine. Then, I ran my hands over his nipples, and marveled at how hard that they were under my fingers.

I wanted to lick him like he had done to me, so I bent down and slowly ran my tongue up his right nipple. His skin was salty, with a slight aftertaste of both soap and laundry detergent. I looked up at Remy as I ran my tongue up his nipple again, and he grabbed my chin and brought me up for another kiss.

He pulled away from me and started to undo the laces on his boots. I got off the bed and knelt before him and started to work on removing his other boot. We soon had them both off, and Remy stood up and offered me a hand up. I stood, and undid his belt just enough so that I could undo the zip and button on his jeans. I push them down until they pool around his feet, and then he steps out of them.

Remy picks me up again and lays me on the bed once more; I'm up higher than I was the last time, and my head is on the pillow. Remy bends over to pick up his pants, and he pulls a condom out from his pocket. He pushes his boxers off and…

Oh wow. It's not like I couldn't feel his erection, but it's even more impressive to look at. Remy rips open the condom packet and rolls the latex on over his penis before he climbs onto the bed and kneels over me. He leans over and takes my lower lip between his teeth again, and pulls me into his arms. I wrap my arms around his neck and wrap my legs around his waist to pull us closer together.

He removes one of his hands away from me for a second so that he can position his penis at the entrance of my vagina. He slowly, tantalizingly starts to push into me. His slow movements are driving me so completely mad with desire. I want to tell him to go faster, but I can't find the words. He finally pushes in all of the way, and I feel the head of his erection push up against my cervix; I gasp at the contact.

We start up a frustratingly slow rhythm. Shallow, shallow, shallow, deep. Shallow, shallow, deep, deep. Shallow, deep, deep, deep. And then the entire process starts all over again. I gasp louder and louder every time that he hits my cervix.

Despite how slow that Remy's pace is, I realize that this was what I had been looking for in a relationship. It wasn't something that Christian could have offered me, I realized. He was too busy dealing with whatever was wrong with him to actually be able to function in a normal relationship like this.

But, this was probably the last place that I should be thinking about Christian Grey, and I turned my head and lightly kissed Remy's jaw. I think that I got more beard than skin, though. Remy captured my lips with his and kissed me with vigor.

I closed my eyes and watched as the lights began to dance faster and faster behind my eyelids once again. I didn't know how much more of this that I could take. This was a moment that I wished would never end.

Remy pulled me to his chest so that there wasn't any room between us. His tantalizing rhythm was broken for a moment, and then he stilled inside of me. His breath came out harshly, and then he gently kissed the side of my neck.

"Ana, I'm so sorry," he whispered after a moment.

"It's okay. It happens."

Why do I get the feeling that this wouldn't have been a problem with Chriaaaaa… My Inner Goddess practically melts into a puddle as Remy brushes his thumb up against my clit. We're still super closer, and he's still inside of me.

My eyes slide closed and I watch as the lights dance faster and faster and faster until I cry out and convulse around Remy. It's somehow even better than my earlier orgasm, because he's inside of me.

I take a moment to gather my wits after that shattering orgasm. Remy nuzzles the side of my face for a moment. "I just want to stay inside of you forever."

"I don't want you to leave, either." We lie in bed like that for a long time, not moving, just existing in the moment. Then, I hear some soft music in the background that doesn't quite fit in with what we just experienced.

"What's that music?"

"Oh, we forgot to turn the TV off," I say with a giggle.

"I suppose that we'd better go take care of stuff right now." Remy pulls out of me and my Inner Goddess stomps her foot with disappointment. "Where's your bathroom?" I tell him, and get up to go take the DVD out of the player and switch the TV off.

* * *

The following morning starts off a lot like the one before. I'm in Remy's arms, and our legs are tangled together under a sheet. The only difference is that I don't get the feeling that I'm being watched, which is just as well, since it would be worrying if anybody but the two of us were in the apartment, since Kate is in Barbados right now.

"Hi," Remy whispers. His eyes are bright from the light that streams into my room early in the morning.

"Hi."

"What time is it?"

"Um…" I twist around and lift myself up so that I can see my alarm clock over Remy. "It's almost eight. What time do you have to be in today?"

"Not until after lunch. I'm doing the closing shift today."

"Good, because I don't really want to get up right now."

"Try ever. How can anybody bare to leave their beds in the morning? I just don't know." I smile sleepily at Remy, close my eyes, and put my head back onto his chest again.

* * *

I'm ripped from a doze that borders on full-on sleep by my phone ringing. Groggily, I push myself out of bed and grab it off of my desk. "Hello?"

"Hi, Ana. This is Jack Hyde, from Seattle Independent Publishing." I'm awake in an instant.

"Yes, hello."

"We feel as if you would be the best fit for our firm, and we'd like to offer you the job."

"That's great! When would I start?"

"Is Monday alright?"

"Yes, Monday's perfect."

"Fantastic. I will see you at 9 AM on Monday, then. Until then."

"Yes. Alright. Thank you!" I hang up and spin around to face Remy with a shit-eating grin on my face.

"What was that? A job?"

"Yes! It was from Seattle Independent Publishing. I'm really glad, because I liked that place the most."

"That is excellent! We should celebrate!" I drop my phone back onto the desk, get onto the bed, and crawl towards Remy. He leans up and kisses me. "I was thinking of pancakes, but…" As if on cue, my stomach lets out a loud growl. I pull back and we laugh. "Pancakes it is, then."

Remy gets out of bed, pulls his boxers on, and leaves the room. I pull on some clean clothes before I head to the bathroom to brush my teeth and use the toilet. As I pass my room to head to the kitchen, my phone chirps to tell me of a new text message. I make a detour to see who it is.

"Hey, you're still coming to my show next week, right?" Oh crap, Jose's show! I completely forgot all about Jose, and I hadn't really talked to him since the day after I lost my virginity.

I smile as I think that Remy would probably enjoy going to a photo show with me. I walk out into the kitchen, where Remy has unearthed our grill and is mixing up some pancake batter from a mix. "Hey, my friend Jose is having a gallery exhibit next week in Portland. Do you want to come with me?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," Remy says as he spoons some batter onto the grill. "Wait, why do I know that name?"

"Because Jose is one of my friends?"

"He's the guy who tried to assault you outside of the bar and then that guy tracked your phone and came to get you, right?"

"Um… yes?" Remy doesn't say anything, and just gives me a scathing look. "What? You can't judge Jose for trying when you told me the day before that you got so drunk that you don't remember having a three-some with Charlotte and Adam."

"Touche."

* * *

My first couple days of work pass by in a blur of training and people that I can't remember all at once. Remy spends most of his nights in my bed, and I honestly don't think that I could have been happier if I had tried. (In a way, we are punishing Charlotte and Adam for creeping on us while we slept, but Remy reports that Charlotte is completely over the moon that he spends his nights with me.)

And then, it is 5:30 on Thursday, and I eagerly rush out of the building to meet up with Remy, who got off from work early today to meet me so that we can drive down to Portland together for Jose's show.

"I hope that I look okay," Remy says as I get into the cab of his truck. He's wearing a dark green polo shirt and khaki pants; I don't think that I've ever seen him wearing anything other than jeans and t-shirts. At least he's still wearing his favorite pair of boots.

"You look nice." I've borrowed something from Kate's closet so that I look nice, but not overly formal.

"This Jose guy is lucky; I would love to have a gallery show like this."

"Maybe you could talk to Jose. He might be able to hook you up."

"But photography is a lot different from painting; the gallery manager might not be interested in my work."

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to talk to him, anyway." I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and look over to Remy again. "You'd think that Charlotte would have hooked you up."

"I probably could ask her for some help, but I'm a little too proud to ask for it. It's bad enough that I live with them."

"Oh, come on. It's not like you're asking for a lot. If you could just get one show, then I'm sure that you'd start to make a lot of money from sales and stuff. And one show would probably mean other shows in the future, too."

"I'm not going to ask Charlotte for help." Yikes, he's pretty angry. I bite my lip and stare out the window. "Are you hungry?" Remy says after we've been on the freeway for a couple of minutes now.

"Yeah."

"Do you want to stop and get something to eat?"

"I really want some fries."

"McDonald's okay? I don't want to be too late." I agree, and Remy pulls off the freeway to pull through a McDonald's drive-thru.

An hour later, I'm squirming in my seat. "Jeez, I shouldn't have gotten such a large soda. I don't know if I'm going to make it!"

"Try, because we're almost to the studio." Remy pulls into a parking lot, and I bolt out of his truck and run inside. I barely notice Jose standing by the door as I make a mad dash for the bathroom.

When I come out after a few minutes, I scan the room for where Remy is. I eventually spot him talking with a lady that I don't know. "Hey, Ana! Are you okay?" Jose asks as he approaches me.

"Yes. Don't drive from Seattle to Portland and decide to get the largest size cup that McDonald's has."

"Well, I'm glad that you're here," Jose says with a charming smile. I realize that I've missed my friend, and I haven't really had anybody to talk to about my relationship woes since Kate left.

Of course, you know perfectly well how Jose feels about you, Logical Reasoning chimes in. Is it really worth bitching about Christian to Jose?

"Anastasia." It's the voice that has haunted my dreams for the past month. And it's here. It said my name.

"Hello Christian," I say coolly. I can't look him in the eye, though. Instead, I look at my feet.

"I'm happy to see you. I haven't been able to get through to you, and you've moved, so I can't send you something in the post."

"I really don't want to talk to you. You are the reason why I got a new phone because you can't take no for an answer."

"I thought that I was just giving you some time to think through the offer that I left for you the day of your graduation. You did receive my note, didn't you?"

"Yes," I hiss through my teeth. "But, you'd think that me changing my number and not bothering to inform you that I had would have been enough of a clue."

"I think that the biggest clue that I've received from you is the fact that you still haven't moved forward with the restraining order," Christian whispers to me. I blanch, and take a couple of steps away from Christian. He's too close and has invaded my personal space. I turn to leave to go and find Remy; I no longer want to be here anymore, despite the fact that I barely even saw any of Jose's pieces. "Ms. Steele. I am not one who enjoys sharing their toys, and my favorite toy has been stolen from me."

What the hell?! Logical Reasoning screams.

"Excuse me?" I whisper, completely taken aback. "I am not something that you can buy or own."

"No, but you were mine once, and I'm not about to let you go without a fight."

"Well maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to stalk me," I spit at him before I turn on my heel to leave. Christian grabs my wrist and yanks me back roughly.

"No. You are not to leave until I tell you that our conversation is finished."

"Let go," I hiss through clenched teeth.

"I'm not going to let you go until we have a chance to talk things through."

"I don't have anything more to say to you, Mr. Grey," I say, my voice louder. "Let. Me. Go."

"Is there a problem over here?" It's the lady that Remy was talking to earlier. Jose is behind her, and so is Remy. Everybody is looking at the two of us. Christian releases my wrist in an instant, and I take a step back.

"Everything is fine. Speaking of which, I'd like to talk to you about purchasing some pictures."

"Oh no you don't. You can't just come in here, assault and harass one of my friends, and then purchase some of my pictures," Jose growls at Christian.

"Those are real fine words, considering that I once stopped you from sexually assaulting Anastasia at a bar," Christian says coolly. Jose's nostrils flare out in annoyance, but he doesn't say anything.

"Are you okay?" the woman whispers to me.

"Yeah," I whisper. My wrists hurts a little from how tightly that Christian was gripping me, but it's honestly the least of my worries right now. "Excuse me." I brush past her and go to Remy's side. He puts his arm around my shoulder and I sag into his side with relief.

"Let's get out of here," he says loud enough for everybody around us to hear.

"Excuse me, Ms. Steele? I don't believe that we've finished our conversation yet," Christian says.

"Oh, I'd say that you're quite finished. Or would you like to add an assault charge onto your stalking and harassment case?" Remy snaps at him.

"How dare you." Christian storms over to where we're standing and looms over Remy and me. "You can't just come in and take another man's girl."

"I am not your girl, and I am free to choose who I want to be with." I sound much braver than I feel because of Christian's intense glare.

"You just can't accept the fact that somebody finally called you out on your bullshit and told you no. Which is probably the first time in your life," Remy tells him in an even tone. "Come on, let's go."

"No, wait," Jose says, and we pause. "Mr. Grey is the one who is making trouble. This is my show, and I want you to leave now, sir."

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave now," the woman says to him firmly. Christian pauses as he considers his options. "If you don't leave, then I'm going to call the police."

"This isn't over, Ms. Steele. We will have our conversation, sooner or later." And then he leaves.

Remy steers me over to a bench, which is just as well, because I don't think that I could have remained standing for much longer. Jose presses a cup into my hands, and I wordlessly sip the cheap champagne. My hands are shaking so badly that I have to hold the cup with both hands in order to not spill. I hear the other people at the gallery whispering to one another, and it takes every ounce of my will not to burst into tears.

I am not going to cry anymore because of Christian Grey. It's not worth my energy.

"Maybe we should just go," Remy whispers as he holds me against his side on the bench. I nod in silent agreement.

"Ana, this is all my fault," Jose says.

"How is this your fault? You didn't tell Christian Grey to come to your gallery show just so that he could harass me some more."

"No, but maybe if I hadn't tried to kiss you, I-"

"Jose, stop. That wasn't your fault. I think that maybe I lead you on a little bit, and we were both pretty drunk. We've all done stupid shit when we were drunk, but Christian Grey has no excuse for being that much of an ass-wipe towards me just now." Jose presses his mouth until it's a thin line. "But, you told him to leave, and you are still my friend, so I think that we can move past what happened at the bar."

"I'm glad, Ana. I didn't want to lose you because of something stupid I did when I was drunk. You know how I feel about you, but I don't think that how you feel about me is ever going to change."

I offer Jose a watery smile before I stand. "Well, I didn't drive for two hours just to sit on a bench and cause a scene."

"You used the bathroom, too."

"Shut up," I say with a roll of my eyes. Despite everything that came between us, I'm glad that Jose is on my side. Remy and I walk hand-in-hand around the gallery as we look at Jose's pictures. Some of them have been enlarged on massive canvases, but every single one of them is completely beautiful.

"I think I know what pictures Christian was trying to buy," Remy whispers. We go around a corner and I'm completely startled. Hanging on the wall are seven black and white portraits of me that are much larger than life. I remember the day very well, because I'd driven Jose and his equipment to a shoot, but I thought that he'd been taking pictures of the bridge that I stood in front of.

"Do you like them?" Jose asks as he comes up behind us.

"I think that you've captured a rare side of Ana that she normally doesn't enjoy showing to many people," Remy says. "Christian was trying to buy one of them."

"One of them? Try all of them," says the gallery owner as she comes over.

"Would you like one of them?" Jose offers me.

"What? Why? What am I going to do with a giant picture of myself."

"I don't know. It beats selling one to that creep. I mean, the money would have been nice, but I can't in good conscious take his money after what just happened."

Oh Jose. If only you knew the whole story.

In the end, I accept the picture of me scowling, and Remy and I leave to head back to Seattle, since it's a two hour drive. But, as soon as we pull onto the freeway, the dam that I'd built up inside to not embarrass myself in front of a room full of strangers breaks and I burst into tears.

"Ana?" Remy whispers as he looks over to me with horror. He pulls off onto the shoulder and shuts the engine off. Then, he pulls me onto his lap, and I sob into his chest until I can't cry anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

To my most darling "Marina",

Thank you for your lovely review, as it has completely filled me with mirth. After all, how in the world could somebody who is so obviously the number one fan of the Fifty Shades trilogy, and thus, in the know of how the series came into existence, be so completely hypocritical of a fellow Fifty Shades trilogy fan and accuse me of… oh drat, what's the word that you used? Oh right, piggybacking onto a published and well-known author's works in order to gain fame for themselves.

Also, I love how you left a review for my most darling reviewer, "Sam".

Please, never change, my sweet "Marina". I love you and your hypocritical sense of humor too much to ever want you to!

Yours truly,

Kitty

* * *

I'm emotionally and physically exhausted the next day at work. I can barely focus on my work, and three times, Jack, my boss, has to ask me if I'm okay. I only want to go home, but I know that I'm probably not going to be able to leave until I finish the reports that Jack has asked me to do.

"Hey, Ana. You should come and celebrate your first week with us at the bar across the street."

"I'm sorry, Jack, but I'm still trying to do this report for you."

"Ah, forget the report, Ana! It's Friday! It's quitting time! The report will still be there on Monday, but I happen to know that there's a beer down at that bar with your name on it. Happy hour on Friday afternoon isn't going to last forever, you know."

"Thanks, but I'm really tired; I think that I'm just going to go home now."

"Are you sure? I'll buy you a drink?" Jack offers. I'm barely able to hold in my look of complete disgust. If this guy keeps up being a sleeze towards me, I might have to quit, regardless of how amazing that this internship might be.

"No, thank you. Maybe next week?" I wince even before the words are fully out of my mouth.

What the hell, Ana? Don't give this guy false hope! Logical Reasoning screams at me.

"Next week, then. See you on Monday, Ana." Jack leaves; I shut down my computer and gather my things to leave, too. As I rode the elevator down to the underground parking structure, I shot Remy a text to let him know that I was on my way home. He might have spent a lot of last week at the apartment with me, but he didn't have a key to the apartment yet.

I had pulled into my usual parking space at my building when Remy pulled into the parking lot. I waved at him as he parked and waited for him on the sidewalk that lead up to our unit. "Hey, how was your day?" he asked when he got out of the truck.

"Exhausting. I thought that the day would never end."

"I told you that you probably didn't have to go in today; that your boss would understand," he said as he reached into the bed of the truck to pull out some grocery bags.

"I know, but it did help to take my mind off from things for a little while," I said with a sigh. Remy reached me and I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my head in his chest. "What did you buy?"

"A couple of groceries. And maybe something else, too." There's a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and I smile at him.

"What?"

"No peeking; it's for later."

"Fine." We walk up the stairs and I fish my keys out from my purse (why do keys always end up on the bottom?). I unlock the door, and then gasp with horror.

Our apartment, while not exactly neat because of the moving boxes, is in a complete disarray. There are things scattered all over the kitchen/dining room area, and from what I can see into the living room, it's the same in there, too. "Shit, what the hell?" Remy gasps as we look around in dismay.

I wordlessly go further into the apartment, and step over random things as I walk. All of the cushions from the sofa have been slashed and there is furniture foam all over the room, on top of random pieces of paper, books, and just general stuff that we hadn't yet unpacked. I go into my room, only to find that my mattress has been completely hacked to pieces, as well as my pillow and sheets.

I'm too afraid to look in my closet right now.

Instead, I turn to leave, and run into Remy. "Ana, you need to call the police." I nod in silent agreement as I open the door to Kate's room. While there is still stuff scattered around, it doesn't look like anything is actually broken in here.

I slam her bedroom door and fish my phone out from my purse, as well as my wallet. "I know who fucking did this," I growl as I search through the business cards in my wallet to pull out the one that Michelle gave me.

"What? Who?"

"Who the hell do you think? The guy can't take fucking no for an answer!" I hiss as I try to punch in the number. But, my hands are shaking too badly, and the display has become super blurry.

Remy gently pulls the phone from my hands.

* * *

"There's honestly not much proof that we could present that it really was Christian Grey who broke into your apartment," Michelle says. As if last night hadn't been tough enough on me, now this happens? I don't know what I'm going to do. While the police guys went through the apartment with a fine-tooth comb to try and find any evidence of who had done this, I had called Kate to let her know what had happened.

"Don't be silly. Christian would never get his hands dirty like this, and he's rich enough to hire an entire team of people to do something like this," I hiss.

"If what you're saying is true, then we'd have an even harder time to pin this onto Mr. Grey," Michelle says calmly. She's probably dealt with things like this hundreds of times before. "I know that you said that you didn't want to go ahead and press charges against him, but, after what you told me he did last night, and your suspicions again today, I think that you'd better." I wordlessly nod. "And if this really is the work of Mr. Grey, it would appear that his attacks are escalating."

I run my hand through my hair in complete frustration. I can't think right now. I just wish that I would wake up in bed and this past month would have all just been some bizarre dream of mine. It would be the morning of Kate's interview, and she would come in and beg me to go into Seattle for her.

And I would tell her no, because I have to study for finals and I've got that essay to write. And I would never meet Christian motherfucking Grey.

And even though it would mean that I'd never have met Remy, I think that I'd be okay with that, because all of this would be just a bad dream.

But then I open my eyes again, and Remy is talking with another officer not too far from where I am, and Michelle is still standing in front of me. It brings a fresh wave of tears to my eyes and I sit down on the curb because my legs can't support me anymore.

"Ana!" I hear somebody call. For a moment, I think that it's Kate, but no, she's still in Barbados, and no money in the world would have brought her over four-thousand miles in just two hours. But no, it's Charlotte, and for once, I'm actually really grateful to see her. "Oh, honey. No! Do not cry!" Charlotte sinks onto the sidewalk next to me and pulls me into her side. "It was only things, and you can replace things! You should just be thankful that everybody is okay."

"It didn't really look like they'd broken much," I told her as I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. "Just slashed up the couch, my bed, my entire wardrobe, and the painting that Remy had given me."

"Oh, Ana! Remy will paint you a new one! Hell, he'll paint you fifty! What did they take?"

"Nothing, as far as I can tell. Everything is sort of just scattered all over the apartment. It'll probably take some time to figure out if they took anything."

"Wait, Ana," Remy says as he comes over to where we're sitting. "Jose's portrait."

"Oh gosh, that's right." For a lack of anything better to do with it, I'd put it against the wall where Kate had put Remy's painting as we waited to get it hung up. But now, Remy's painting was completely in shreds, and Jose's portrait of me was gone. I got up and went to find Michelle. "I know how we can tell if Christian Grey really was behind this."

"How?"

"Yesterday, at the art show, my friend gave me a really big black and white portrait of me. And it's missing. I completely forgot all about it. But, Christian tried to purchase some of them from Jose, but Jose said no."

"That's not exactly enough evidence to get a warrant to search his apartment, but if we happen to be in there on another warrant, and it's in plain view, then that'll be evidence enough."

"Do you need anything more from me? I'm really tired."

"We've got your number, where you work, and the address of the place where you'll be staying in case we need to contact you. I can only hope that the next time that I do see you, I will have some better news to give you, Ana."

"Me, too," I whisper sadly. I turn around and go back to Charlotte and Remy.

"Come on, honey. There's a warm cup of tea waiting back at our place with your name on it," Charlotte says as she puts her arm around my shoulders. I let her lead me to her car, and Remy gets into his truck.

* * *

I do feel much calmer after I've had a cup of tea. Charlotte goes out after she fixes me up a pot of tea, and comes back when I'm on my third cup with a bunch of clothes for me. "I don't know if they'll fit you or not, but it's better than nothing."

"Charlotte, you are just too kind to me, even though we barely know one another."

"If people were just a tiny bit more kind to people, regardless of how well that they know them, then the world would be a much, much brighter place."

I somehow don't think that a Texas-sized piece of kindness from Christian Grey will make him to be less of a worse person, Logical Reasoning says with a roll of her eyes.

"Do you want to watch some TV? How about a movie?"

"No. I was already really tired from what happened last night, and now this. I think that I'm just going to go to bed."

"Okay. Just let us know if you need anything. Night, Ana."

I take the things that Charlotte bought for me and go down the hall to Remy's room. He's been in there since we got back, but when I come in, he quickly puts his brushes down and throws a sheet over the painting that he's working on. "It's okay, I won't look."

"I know. And I'm sorry about just leaving you with Adam. I'm just so… So… And painting makes me feel less frustrated and angry and generally just pissed off at the world."

"I understand." I drop the bags onto Remy's desk chair, and then flop face-first onto his bed. A moment later, the bed dips down and Remy starts to rub my back in small, soothing circles. "Our evening was completely ruined. What was your surprise?" Remy wordlessly gets up and goes over to the plastic grocery bags that sit in the corner of his room. He'd put the food away as soon as we got back to the apartment, but I hadn't seen him leave with whatever his surprise was.

He pulls out two good-sized containers that are sealed in plastic, and a new set of paint brushes. "Your surprise is painting supplies? Not really much of a surprise."

"Nooo…" He tosses me one of the containers, though I barely catch it. I spin it around to read the front. "Edible Body Paint. Strawberry flavored."

"You said that you were interested in trying it out."

"I am," I say quickly. All thoughts about Christian Grey are pushed to the back of my mind as I remember when Remy first mentioned the body paint and how I wanted for him to lick it off from my stomach.

"Here, get these open," Remy says as he hands me the other container (vanilla) and the package of brushes. He leaves the room, and I rip open the plastic that seals the strawberry paint closed, and I'm working on the other one when Remy returns with a big sheet that's splattered with paint. "I don't want to make a mess on the bed." I help him spread it over the bed, and then he left to cut open the brushes.

Remy comes back into the room, throws the brushes down onto the bed, and kisses me. He then tugs on the hem of my shirt, and I reluctantly pull away from his lips and hold my hands over my head so that he can pull it off. "Lie down?" I pick the brushes up off the bed and hand them and the two containers to Remy before I lie on the bed.

Remy sits on the edge next to me and takes his time to select a brush. I'm more certain that it's to drive me crazy with the wait rather than the fact that he needs to find the perfect one. But then he eventually selects one and unscrews the lid on the vanilla paint. Remy then dips his finger into the paint and licks it off before he dips it in again and offers me his finger to taste the paint. I run my tongue up his finger before I suck lightly on the tip of it.

Remy pulls his finger out of my mouth, picks up the brush again, dips it into the paint, leans over me, and carefully draws a line from the edge of my left jaw, down the side of my neck, and then over to brush across my left collar bone. The sensation of the slightly damp brush tickles me more than it arouses me. As soon as the brush is lifted from my clavicle, Remy bent down and slowly runs his tongue up the line of paint that he just put down. When he had finished licking up all of the paint, Remy kissed me lightly on the lips; I could just barely taste the vanilla.

Then, Remy dipped the brush into the paint, placed it between my breasts, just above where my bra was, and drew a straight line up to the top of my sternum. I was a little bit more prepared for the wet, tickling sensation this time. His tongue quickly followed, before he pulled me into a sitting positions so that he could unhook my bra. After he had tossed my bra onto the floor, Remy painted a circle around my nipple with a swift counter-clockwise motion. He then put his mouth around my nipple, and his tongue swept up the paint in a clockwise motion.

He released my breast, and picked up another brush that was similar in size to the one he had been using. Remy dipped both of them brushes into the paint, and placed both of them on the underside of each breast. "Let's see how working ambidextrously turns out, shall we?" He moved both of his hands down my sides in a diagonal pattern until he reached my belly button. The sensation of both brushes against my belly was too much, and I laughed a little at the sensation. Remy offered me a seductive, loop-sided grin before he put the brushes down and bent over me to lick the paint on my belly.

He was tantalizingly slow as he made his way up my ribcage to the bottom of my breast. But, he didn't linger once he had licked the paint off from the one side, and went back down to my bellybutton again to start the entire process all over on the other side. Once he had licked the paint off the bottom of my left breast, Remy sat up and looked down at me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

"Do you want a turn?" Remy whispered. I nodded wordlessly, and Remy sat up to pull his shirt off. I stood up so that we could trade places on the bed, and once Remy had settled, I grabbed the strawberry paint. I tasted it, to see if I would like it, before I dipped my finger into the container and then offered it to Remy to taste. He took my finger into his mouth, and as his tongue swirled around my paint-covered digit, I felt a rush of molten-hot desire pool in my groin.

Remy released my finger, and I contemplated the blank canvas that was his naked torso. "Hm, what should I draw?"

"I wasn't drawing anything."

"I know that, but I want to do something and have you guess."

"I could go get the pictionary cards if you like?"

"Hm, no." I picked up a clean brush and slowly started to paint a slightly diagonal line from his nipple that went up. After a few minutes of working, I looked down at my handiwork. "Well?"

"It's a house," Remy said. "Not a very good one, but-"

"Oh, shush," I whispered before I bent over and started to lick the paint off. The sweetness of the paint had mixed with the sweat of Remy's skin, and offered an interesting taste combination. I started from the roof of my house and worked down until I was almost to the line of his pants. Once I had licked all of the paint off, I undid Remy's pants, and pushed them and his boxers down. I grasped Remy's hard penis in one hand, and then dipped the brush into the paint. Then, I slowly started to draw straight, curly, and spiky lines up and down the length of his hard cock.

Once I had completely covered his penis in an odd assortment of lines, I tossed the brush aside and slowly started to lick the paint off, by starting from the bottom and moving up. Once I reached the base of the head, I would then start all over from the bottom on the next line. Once I had cleaned his cock, I picked up the brush once again and started to draw a circle around the base of the tip of his penis.

"Ana, if you do that, then I'm going to cum," Remy whispered, his breath ragged.

"I want to," I replied as I started to draw a slightly smaller circle. I kept making smaller and smaller circles until I couldn't anymore. Then, I put the brush down and took just the tip of his penis into my mouth. I swirled my tongue over the circles of paint, but since I couldn't see where they were, I sometimes just missed.

As soon as my tongue finished running around the base of the head of his penis, I took him as far into my mouth as I could, and then rubbed the rest of his cock that wouldn't fit into my mouth with my hands. Remy groaned my name, and I felt a warm gush of salty liquid enter my mouth. I swallowed out of pure reflex, and didn't release him until the onslaught was over.

I pulled away from him and then lay down on the bed, to Remy's right. After a moment, he turned and lazily kissed me. "I like it when you taste like me."

"Well, I like to taste you," I replied. Remy's hands trailed down my sides until he reached the top of my pants. He undid them, and I pushed my hips up a little so that he could pull them off from me.

"Roll onto your stomach." I did as I was told, and after a moment, I felt the wet, tickling sensation of the brush against the middle of my back. Remy slowly wrote his name along my spine, and then he started to encircle my right butt-cheek with paint with increasingly smaller circles. He bent over me and licked up the letters, before he moved down to my bottom.

I jolted a little when his tongue touched the space where my bottom turned into my leg, and then moaned out loud when his index and middle finger pushed into my vagina. His thumb started to slowly circle my clit in pace with the movement of his tongue along my butt. His tongue moved faster and faster, and so did his thumb. His fingers continued to push in and out of me with the movement of his thumb. I cried out as an orgasm washed over me, but Remy did not still his movements, which meant that my orgasm kept going on and on until finally, I was so completely spent from the peak of my pleasure.

"You're so eager; I didn't even finish getting all of the paint off," Remy said after a beat.

"Well, get it off, because I'm so tired right now," I said. Remy bent over me, and with a few swipes of his tongue, finished cleaning the rest of the paint off from my butt. Then, he lay next to me and pulled me into his arms. "I'm really lucky to have you, Remy."

"I'm happy to have you, too."

* * *

As usual, please let me know if there were any god-awful grammatical mistakes, as this is unedited.

Love ya lots, guys! –Kitty


	10. Chapter 10

I think that the only thing that I love more than my amazing reviewers are stories that depict strong women who won't stand to be in any kind of abusive relationship, no matter what.

You guys know the drill; blah-blah-blah, grammar, blah-blah-blah, let me know.

* * *

I'm exceptionally relaxed as I lie in Remy's arms early the next morning. I don't want to get up and face the reality that I'm being hunted down like some deer, and there's little that the police can do to stop Christian. I know what Michelle meant when she said that there wasn't enough proof that it was Christian, and I want to make the legal system work in my favor.

But, Christian also knows the legal system, and right now, he's only just making it work for his favor instead of mine.

"Hey," Remy whispers; he presses a kiss to my forehead.

"Hey," I reply as I stare into his burning blue eyes. I try to pull away from him and realize that I'm slightly stickier than usual. I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

"So it would appear that we're both rather sticky. And I thought that I'd licked all of the paint off. Would you like to join me for a shower?" I agree as I pull on Remy's discarded shirt from last night. Remy takes my hand and leads me out to the hall.

"But what about Charlotte and Adam?" I say as I tug down the end of the shirt; Remy pulled me from the room before I had a chance to get my panties on.

"Don't be absurd; they don't wake up before 10 and on a good day, they won't get out of bed before noon," Remy says. He pulls me into the bathroom, and slams me up against the door so that I closes, and he kisses me with gusto. He quickly pulls the t-shirt off from me, and then pulls away before I can devoid him of his boxers. Remy turns the water on in the shower, and then pulls his boxers off.

He offers me his hand, and we carefully step into the shower stall. Remy pulls the door closed, although it won't really offer much by the way of protection, since it's only just frosted glass with stainless steel trim. Remy wets a cloth, and squirts some body wash onto it before he starts to rub it over my neck and chest. At first, he seems to have the same attentiveness to washing me as a nurse would a patient, but I realize that his hands linger for a bit too long over my breasts, and on my butt.

When Remy moved the cloth to wash my vagina, I bit my lip to stop myself from groaning out loud. But, it didn't do much good because it came out anyway. Remy kissed me, and I moved back until I was flush up against the far wall of the shower. Remy's fingers moved in frustratingly slow circles around my clit through the washcloth. He stared into my eyes until I came undone, and shuddered around him.

I opened my eyes and smiled sheepishly at him. I watched as the water trickled down the hallow of his throat, before I leaned in and lapped it up. "Oh no. How are we supposed to get anything done if your only thoughts are of sex?" Remy said teasingly.

He spun me around and moved me so that I was out of the spray of the shower head. I heard him open a bottle, and a minute later, he was pressed up against my backside. Remy's semi-hard erection pressed up against my lower back, and he slowly started to rub shampoo into my hair. I was still pretty relaxed from my orgasm, so I leaned my head back until it was resting against Remy's shoulder.

Once Remy was finished lathering my hair with shampoo, he wrapped his arms around my middle and took a step backwards until we were in the line of the shower head again. He then rubbed the shampoo from my hair, and rinsed the soap residue off from the rest of my body. Then, he handed me another wash cloth.

I rubbed all over Remy's torso, and paid special attention to his chest, since that was where I had made my wonderful painting. Then, I wrapped the cloth around Remy's cock, which was now quite hard, and I started to slowly rub it up and down his length. "What are you doing?"

"Don't you remember? I painted it last night; I have to make sure that it's clean. Besides, I don't exactly recall you putting any paint on my vagina last night."

"No, but it's important to keep it clean."

"And I can imagine that it's important to keep your penis clean, too."

"Touche," Remy said with a roll of his eyes. I kept up a rather fast rhythm as I rubbed his penis until he braced himself against the wall and came. The wash cloth caught most of his cum, but some of it dripped onto the shower floor between our feet. But by the time that Remy came back to himself, the water had washed most of it away.

Without breaking eye-contact with me, Remy reached for the bottle of shampoo and handed it to me. I squired some onto the palm of my hand, and Remy sat on the small ledge on the other end of the shower so that I could reach his hair better. I'd never washed another person's hair before, not even my mom's, but I felt as if I probably shouldn't quit my job in the publishing world and become a hairdresser. Once I was finished, Remy stood and rinsed his hair out.

He grabbed me to him again, and gave me a sensual smile. I wanted more, but Remy probably hadn't brought any condoms into the bathroom. I was just about to ask him when somebody pounded on the bathroom door. Remy quickly shut the water off. "What?"

"Ana, Kate just called," Charlotte said. "She and her parents just got into Seattle, so you'd better finish up in their quick, because they'll be over to your apartment in a few minutes to see what the damage is."

"Oh shit, I completely forgot about Kate," I whisper to Remy. "It's her parent's apartment."

"It's not like you trashed the place and sliced up the furniture and your clothes," Remy whispered to me, his lips near my neck.

"I'd better call Michelle; she said to do that when Kate got back."

* * *

"Okay, I was willing to let the entire Christian Grey thing slide, but this has gotten out of hand," Kate says as we stand in the doorway of our apartment.

"The guy obviously doesn't know how to take no for an answer," Ethan says with a sour look on his face. "He's your brother, Elliot. Can you do something?"

"I'm sort of with the police officer on this one," Elliot says quickly. "You don't have proof either way that this was Christian." Kate gives him a rather sour look; so it would appear as though a guy that she's known for about a month know isn't more important than her best friend.

"You should probably just be lucky that it was only your clothes, your mattress, and the sofa that was damaged," Kate's dad, Charles, says.

"And a painting," I quickly tell him. Charles looks like he's about ready to say something rude, but his wife, Amelia, stops him with a glare.

"The insurance company will probably cover for a replacement bed, and of course, a sofa," Charles continues. "But I don't think that they'll cover your clothes. Sorry."

"It's alright; Charlotte already bought me some things last night."

"That was really nice of her," Amelia says softly. "Kate, Ana, I don't want for you girls to stay here anymore. I know that the damage has already been done, but I won't rest easy knowing that some creeper broke in here once already."

"It's going to take forever to get this mess cleaned up," Kate said with a deep sigh.

"Well, maybe we'd better," I tell her. "After all, I didn't exactly look around real hard yesterday. There might be some small things of ours that are missing, too, and we should find out if they are as soon as possible so we can add it to the police report."

"Good thinking. The insurance company won't exactly be happy if we keep adding things that were stolen," Charles says. "I'm going to go down to the office right now to file the report. Ethan, can you go home with your mother and help her find a place where the girls can stay for a while until we can find them some place better?"

Kate's family leaves, and Kate and I are left alone in the apartment with Elliot. I'm not quite sure if I trust him or not; he is, after all, Christian's brother, but I do feel better that he's here. Kate and I slowly start to clean up in the living room, while Elliot sits on one of the chairs around the kitchen table. I was thankful that they weren't damaged, as I really love those chairs.

"So, aside from all of this, how have you been?" Kate asks. I tell her about how Remy and I ran into Christian at Jose's art show the other day. "The guy has some serious boundary issues," Kate whispers; her voice is low so that Elliot can't hear her. "But, I agree with the police officer; a restraining order isn't going to keep Christian away from you, and it sure as hell didn't stop him from hiring somebody to break in here. But, enough about him. How's Remy?"

"He's good," I say quickly. I hide my face, because I know that I'm blushing from the memory of our shower earlier.

"Anastasia! Look at you! I've never seen you so happy!" Kate gushes. "Look, Ana, I know that I'm somewhat to blame for pushing you into a relationship with Christian. I was a little worried about you, because you'd never expressed any interest in sex before. But, maybe I pushed you before you were ready, and before you knew all of the facts about the guy you were getting into a relationship with. I didn't want to say anything, because you were rather happy after you spent the night with him, but… Remember how upset that you were after your first date with him? And later, you were miserable. I mean, sure, relationships can have their ups and downs, but that guy is really a piece of work."

"Kate, you aren't to blame for any of this. I'm the one who went with him to Seattle, and I'm the one who chose to… stay with him," I said carefully.

"You know, that was really messed up; him just taking you to Seattle like that. I mean, if you'd wanted to leave, you probably would have had to call me to come and get you. And it's a two hour drive. That's two hours of you being alone in Seattle."

"He treated my virginity like it was something that was wrong with me. He seemed to be under the impression that sex was some sort of highly contagious disease that everybody eventually catches once they're over a certain age."

"Ana, you have to admit that being a virgin when you're twenty-one-" Kate starts, but I cut her off.

"No, Kate. This is my body, and I won't be shamed into letting anybody tell me that it was wrong of me to wait. You've made your mistakes; you told me so when I came home that afternoon. And you have to let me have mine. It just so happens that maybe I shouldn't have gone with him because I barely knew him. It's something that I think about a lot, but dwelling on the negative stuff that's happened in the past isn't going to change what's happening to me right now."

Kate sat back on her heels and stared blankly at me for a moment. "You're right," she finally said. "Your body is not mine to judge." We silently kept sorting through the things that were scattered across the floor. "What are we going to do for tonight, though?"

"Well, I suppose that I'll continue to stay with Remy, and you'll just go stay with your parents."

"Is this it, then? The end of our friendship? Driven apart by some creep who couldn't take no for an answer?"

"What? Kate! How could you say such a thing? Just because we won't be living together while we sort out our living arrangements doesn't mean that we won't be friends."

"I suppose so. I just feel like this is the start of something, and maybe it's not all that great. I mean, we've both got boyfriends right now, and if we're not living together, I feel like I'm not going to see you as much anymore."

"Oh, come on, Kate! You're just being completely absurd now," I say with a roll of my eyes.

"Maybe," Kate finally agrees after remaining silent for a long time.

* * *

Even if Kate's parents manage to find us a new apartment, there's no way that it would be move-in ready in just a few hours. And even then, I still don't have a bed. So, after Amelia and Ethan come by to check on us and to tell us the news of their apartment search for us, I get into Wanda and head over to Minerva's Worn Books to catch Remy at work.

He's helping somebody check out when I come in, but the store is quiet. There's a lady reading in the cafe, but I can't tell if there's any other patrons in the store at the moment. The man at the counter leaves with his purchases, and I make my way over to where Remy is behind the till.

"Hey. What did Kate's parents have to say about the apartment?"

"Mr. Kavanagh said that insurance will pick up my destroyed bed, but not my wardrobe."

"Aw, I'm sorry. But that shirt looks nice on you, though. Charlotte's got great taste."

"Thanks. I'm glad that Charlotte bought me some nicer things to wear to work; it's bad enough that I'm going to have to spend most of my first paycheck on new clothes."

"What are you going to do about living arrangements? I enjoy waking up to have a shower with you, but it's probably not good for our relationship at such an early stage."

"Kate's parents are looking for another apartment for us. Mr. Kavanagh says that we probably shouldn't stay there, since it was already broken into once before. But, it's going to take a while for an apartment to be move-in ready."

"Right. Well, just for a few more nights, then. Which is just as well, because we didn't exactly…" Remy trails off as the bell above the front door jingles as somebody walks in.

"Well, I don't want to bother you while you're at work," I say quickly. "Maybe I'll just go stare longingly at some books that I'm not going to be able to buy for a while."

"No, don't torture yourself, Ana. Just go home. Well, back to my place. See what Charlotte is up to right now."

"But what about Adam?"

"He's probably working on something right now. But Charlotte will probably invite you to do something."

"Okay. When are you getting off from work?"

"In about… two hours, fifteen minutes, and a few odd seconds," Remy said after he consulted the over-sized clock on the wall behind him.

"Okay. I'll see you then."

"Good, because we didn't exactly finish what we started in the shower this morning." He offered me a saucy smirk. Even from just that one look, I felt my groin quiver from excitement.

"Then I'd better make sure to get nice and dirty before you come home, then."

* * *

Since I don't have a key, I have to knock on the door to the apartment. Charlotte answers, and I'm thankful that she at least threw something on before she decided to open the door butt-naked. "Ana! I'm so glad that you're here! I need somebody to paint with!"

"But I'm not much of an artist," I protest as Charlotte drags me into the living room. She's put down a paint-covered sheet over the floor, and has set up two easels that face one another.

"Nonsense! As long as you can smear paint around on a piece of paper, that's art! Oh, but hold on, let me get you something to cover up with. That blouse looks really good on you. Damn, I have great taste in clothing!" Charlotte leaves the room and quickly returns with an button-down shirt that's splattered with paint on the back. Charlotte instructs me to put it on backwards, so that it covers me the most, and then she hands me some bottles of paint and some brushes before she goes to the other easel.

I dip a brush into the red paint and make a nervous swipe across the upper left corner of the canvas. "Am I doing this right?"

"Darling, you can't do art wrong. There is no wrong way to do art. Just… paint whatever you feel like. So, tell me about your parents?"

"W-why?"

"I don't know; I'm just making conversation. I don't know anything about your parents. You know, you can really learn a lot about a person by what kind of relationship that their parents have."

"Oh…" I briefly tell Charlotte about my biological father, Ray, Carla, and Carla's string of marriages.

"Hm, your mother sounds a bit flighty. That's normally not a good thing."

"Why not?"

"Children of divorce are more likely to end up getting divorced themselves. They look at the relationship that their parents had and, unintentionally or not, view it as being normal. So, rather than try to make their own relationships work out, they'll just go for the quick exit. Speaking of which, did you know that most marriages start to fall apart at the three-to-five year mark?"

"I did not. Do you really think that my mom's relationship with Ray is an indicator of what might happen to me? Ray's not even my biological father."

"Hm, maybe. I's hard to say because your father died. But, in case studies where the couple was asked to try to make things work and to go to counseling rather than to get a divorce, a few years after, the couples were glad that they stayed together. The introduction of no-fault divorce made the divorce rate sky-rocket. And now, more than half of all marriages end in divorce."

"Oh. Is that why you and Adam aren't married?"

"That does have something to do with it, yes. You know, in some places, we would be married under common-law. But, common-law marriages aren't so common anymore. I don't think that there's more than a dozen places in the US that practice them now."

"What's a common-law marriage?"

"It's when a couple like Adam and myself have lived together for so long, that the government just marks us as being married anyway, despite the fact that we're not. We'd have the same benefits as any other married couple, and it would be just as difficult to get the status of common-law marriage revoked as any other marriage."

"So, if I lived with Remy where they practice this, then we'd just be married like that?"

"Well, not just like that. I forget the exact time-lines on this, but I think that it takes living together for several years in order for the government to classify you as being in a common-law marriage."

"How long have you and Adam been living together?"

"Um, let's see now… We met when we were freshmen in college, and decided to move in together after our first semester. Gosh, I can't believe that it's going on nine years now," Charlotte said. I tried to figure out how old that Charlotte was based off from that information.

"Are you really 27?"

"Shh, she's not a day over 19," Adam said as he walked by the entrance to the living room with a bag of Cheetos. Charlotte poked her head around my easel and dramatically rolled her eyes.

"Hey, looking good, Ana! I'll make an artist out of you yet!"

"Thanks, but I think that I'll probably mainly stick to writing."

"Hey, writing is just as much of an art-form as painting is. But, maybe you could write the award-winning children's novel, and I'll illustrate it!"

"That sounds like a plan, Char!" I agree with a laugh.


	11. Chapter 11

On one hand, yes, I know that court dates like this take time. But on the other hand... does anybody really want to read a story in which a character sits and waits for like a month in order to go to court?

But anyway, I wrote most of this chapter... like... 99% of this chapter while on cold medicine. I hate kids and I hate public transportation. So, if there's any glaring errors, let me know.

* * *

I lay in Remy's arms, my head rests on his chest, and I sigh contentedly. Remy's fingers trail lightly up and down my back; it tickles a little, but not enough to get me to giggle. "You've got your hearing on Monday."

"I'm not looking forward to it. I just know that Christian is going to try and weasel his way out of this. He knows the law better than I do, and he's playing it like a fiddle," I said. "I feel like I'm going to need a long vacation when this is all over. Maybe Kate can take me to Barbados."

"I know it's not exactly Barbados, but how about a road trip to Yreka?"

"Why? Where's Yreka?"

"It's my home-town."

"What? Where is Yreka? I've never heard of it."

"It's in northern California. Like, right on the border between California and Oregon," Remy explained. "I'd like for you to meet my parents. I wouldn't be making such a big deal out of this if they didn't live two states over."

"No, that sounds great," I say quickly. "But I don't know when we'd go. I mean, I only just started at SIP, and you'd have to take time off, too."

"In case you didn't catch this the other fifty times that I mention this, but I work for minimum wage. I can barely afford to buy myself painting supplies, and I sure as hell wouldn't be living here if Charlotte wasn't supporting me."

"But you have a job, and that's the important part. And if you just vanished for a couple of days, I'm not so sure that you'd have a job when you came back."

"Well, you do have a good point. I don't know; I'll talk to my boss about it. Hey, maybe you could ask your boss for some personal time when you tell him that you're not going to be in on Monday because of your court date. The trauma of being harassed has gotten to you, and you need a day or two to clear your head."

"I don't think that I could do that. I mean, I have been super stressed because of this, but doing stuff, however dull, helps to keep my mind off from everything. At least for a little while. It wouldn't be right to ask for personal time." Remy shrugs absently, and I pull away from him as my phone starts to ring. I don't recognize the number, but it might be Charles to give me an update on the insurance policy or the apartment hunt, so I answer it, despite the fact that it's well after 10 PM.

"Anastasia," says the deep voice that has been haunting my dreams. Christian then rattles off the address and unit number of Remy's apartment before the line goes dead.

Holy shit. How the hell did Christian get my new number? I pick up my blouse off the floor and pull it on, nervous that Christian is somehow spying on us, despite the fact that the blinds in Remy's room are closed.

"Ana?" Remy whispers from the bed. "What's wrong? Who was that?"

"It was Christian."

"What? Are you serious? How did he find out your number?"

"I'm a little bit more concerned with the fact that he knew the address to the apartment."

"What?" With that, Remy jumped up, pulled his boxers on, and quickly left the room, I pulled on my pants and followed him to Charlotte's and Adam's room.

"Oh man. When it rains, it pours," Charlotte said. She and Adam had quickly pulled a sheet up to cover their nudity when Remy came into the room.

"Okay, so now this guy is harassing all of us," Adam said with a deep scowl. "Ana, call up that officer-lady and let her know what just happened."

"R-right," I replied as I hit Michelle's number in my phone. She answered on the second ring. "Michelle? It's Ana Steele."

"Don't tell me that he's contacted you again." She didn't sound surprised or even disappointed.

"Yes. He called me and said the address of where I am right now," I said. Michelle heaved a deep sigh.

"I'll see if we can scrounge up some beat officers to drive by the apartment, but we're stretched a little thin right now. You're still at your boyfriend's place, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"We'll talk about this more on Monday, but hopefully, he won't have any more contact with you before then. Good night, Ana."

"Alright. Night. Sorry to have bothered you."

"It's no problem, Ana; it's my job. Good bye." And then she hung up. Adam, Charlotte, and Remy gave me expectant looks as I pressed the end call button on my phone.

"She said that she'd ask some officers to drive by the apartment, but it's the best she can do."

"Well, I'm ten types of creeped out right now. Let's have a sleep-over in the living room tonight," Charlotte said.

* * *

Monday morning dawned overly bright and sunny, which was at odds with my mood. Out of all of the days for Seattle to have nice weather, why did it have to be this day? I dressed in the clothes that Charlotte had laid out for me the night before, and then I picked up my phone to call Jack and let him know that I would be in late today. "Jack? It's Ana. I'm going to be in sometime later this afternoon, because I have to go into the court today."

"What for? Is everything okay?"

"Not really, no. I'm being stalked, and I've been dragging out this restraining order, but on Friday, the guy broke into my apartment and trashed the place. I'm sorry that this is real sudden, but-"

"No, Ana. It's alright. Take the day off. Do you need to take some personal time, too?" Jack asked. I chewed on my lip and looked over to Remy, who was watching from the doorway.

"Y-yeah," I found myself saying. "This entire thing has me quite shaken. I think that I need to get out of town for a couple of days to clear my head."

"I understand. Take all of the time that you need, Ana. We can talk about this more when you get back. Hope everything goes well for you today."

"Thank you, Jack. I'll probably be back maybe by Monday." I ended the call and gave Remy a sad look. He opened up his arms and I moved in to accept his hug.

"So, we're going to California?"

"Yeah."

"I'll see about getting some time off from work, then."

* * *

The courthouse was bustling with activity, despite the early hour. I met Michelle at the front security check, and after Remy and I had gone through the scans, I followed Michelle down to where the case would be held. "There's so much evidence against him right now that there's no way that the judge will deny your claim for a restraining order. And he didn't exactly make things easier on himself by calling you on Saturday."

"I'm just ready for this all to be over," I said as I looked around. There weren't as many people in the area where we were, but a moment later, Kate came out from an elevator, followed by Charlotte and Adam. They walked over to where we were standing.

"You'll be fine," Charlotte whispered as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "This will all be over in-" Before she could finish, the elevators dinged again and Christian Grey, followed by a man in an immaculate suit that I took to be his lawyer stepped out. Charlotte turned me so that I was facing the wall, and started to say "Mumble, mumble, mumble," over and over into my ear.

"Maybe I should have gotten a lawyer," I whisper to her.

"Don't be silly, honey. Lawyers are expensive and this is pretty much an open and shut case. The guy was practically begging for you to file a restraining order against him and kept giving you evidence against why. And anyway, both Adam and I have seen every single episode of every single show that Dick Wolf has written."

"Color me reassured that you watch reruns of Law and Order on TNT," I say with a roll of my eyes.

"Just relax. This will all be over soon, and then you and Remy will be on your way to Yreka."

The doors to the room that we would be in opened and some people came out. After a minute, an officer came out and said that they were hearing a case number now. "That's us," Michelle said. We trailed inside.

There wasn't any bench seats, like what the courtrooms on Law and Order looked like, or even a place for a jury to sit. There were just two tables on opposite sides of the little room, and the judge's bench against the far wall. Christian and his lawyer went directly to the table on the left side of the room, and my entourage went to the right, while Michelle stood in the middle of the room.

* * *

"Ms. Steele is being completely unreasonable. I only sent her a few emails."

"After Ms. Steele specifically told you to stop," Charlotte argued. "And as soon as Ms. Steele told you that she wished to end her relationship with you, you showed up, unannounced, at the apartment that she shared with Ms. Kavanagh, where you then stayed for hours, despite Ms. Kavanagh's protests, until Ms. Steele returned home."

"Ms. Steele has been known in the past to make shifty, and often dangerous choices. I was afraid for her safety, and I wanted to make sure that she was alright."

"Ms. Steele is twenty-one years old, and is able to make her own decisions. I mean, if she somehow managed to survive this long with only ever having one broken arm in her entire life, I'd say that she's on the right track."

"Well, did Ms. Steele tell you about how I stopped a molester from feeling her up when she was drunk?"

"She did, actually, but it's not like that's any of your business. You wouldn't have even been there if you hadn't tracked her phone."

"That's quite enough from the two of you," the judge said. For somebody who'd listened to Charlotte and Christian bicker for the past ten minutes, she sure seemed cool and collected. "Mr. Grey, in light of the evidence that has been presented today, I hereby order you to refrain from contacting Ms. Steele in the future, be this by phone, email, text message, hand-written letter, fax, in person, or any sort of delivery via a third party. You are also to keep at least 150 feet away from her residence with Ms. Kavanagh, the residence of Ms. Goddard, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Nelson, as well as Seattle Independent Publishing."

"Your honor, there is a… slight problem with that," Christian's lawyer said. He pulled a file folder out from his brief case and brought it over to the judge. "As you can see, Mr. Grey has legally purchased Seattle Independent Publishing, as of a week ago." My jaw hit the floor, and I know that I wasn't the only one completely flabbergasted by this news.

The judge was silent for a moment as she looked through whatever Christian's lawyer had given her. "As morally repugnant as I find purchasing the place of which the girl that you are harassing the day after she starts to work for the company, I'm afraid that there's nothing that I can do about this."

Charlotte balled her hands into fists, and Adam put his hand on her shoulder in order to restrain her from jumping across the room to slug Christian.

"But, as I'm looking over some of your other business ventures, I have your word that you will not bother Ms. Steele at her place of work?" the judge went on.

"Yes, of course," Christian replied coolly.

"And if I find out that you have violated this restraining order, you will be heavily fined, Mr. Grey. Ms. Steele, Mr. Grey, please step forward." We walked up to her bench, and she produced a couple of documents for us to sign. They pretty much said what the judge had just ordered Christian to do, including about him not harassing me at work, even though he owned the company now. Wow, they can print those things off fast. We signed all of them, and each kept a copy for ourselves. "Case dismissed," the judge said as she brought her gavel down onto the table.

Remy put his arm around my waist as we walked out from the room, but it didn't ease the disturbing feeling that crept up my spine and latched itself onto the base of my neck. I could feel Christian's hard gaze on my back until the elevator doors slid closed behind us.

"So, what now?" Adam asked as the elevator started to move down to the first floor.

"Remy and Ana obviously have got to go and pack for their trip!" Charlotte said with a sly smile. "With luck, they should be able to get there before tomorrow." The elevator stopped, we got off, and made our way to the parking lot, where we bid our good-byes to Charlotte and Adam, but since I had come over with Remy, I lingered to talk to Kate for a moment.

"Don't worry about the apartment; Ethan and my mom will help pack everything up. Hopefully, we'll be moved into a new place before you get back. I'll keep you posted. You should go and have a vacation of your own, Ana."

"Thanks. I'm probably going to buy a new phone somewhere along the road, so you should just call Remy if you need to reach me."

"Will do. Have fun on your trip." Kate left, and Remy and I got into his truck.

"Did you ask for time off from work?"

"No, but I think that you need some time with me more than my boss and that stupid book store does right now. But, we should get back to the apartment before Charlotte tries to stuff two bags with nothing but condoms and lingerie."

"She does know that we're going to stay with your parents, right?" I ask. Remy just shot me a dry look.

When we got back to the apartment, there wasn't even any sign of Remy's roommates, so he wordlessly dug out a couple of old duffel bags from Adam's closet (it was his because it wasn't filled with dresses) and I packed the clothes that Charlotte had gotten for me. Most of them still had the tags on them.

"Are you hungry? We should get something to eat before we leave town."

"Maybe we could head out of town and then find some place to eat. Right now, the only thing that I want to do is to put Seattle into the rear-view mirror."

"Alright."

* * *

Remy and I roared down the highway with the windows rolled down, and blasted classic rock over the radio. We sang along to the parts that we knew, and pretended like we knew what we were doing for the parts that we didn't know. About an hour outside of Seattle, we stopped at a Burger King, and fed each other fries and chicken nuggets, and laughed like I haven't in a very long time.

When we got back onto the road, Remy called his parents to let them know that he was coming home for a visit, with a plus one. "Hi, mom."

"Hi, Remy! It's been so long since you last called! How's Seattle?"

"Seattle's fine as ever. How's Yreka?"

"It's getting along just as it always has. Of course, you'd know that if you came back to live with us."

"Well, I can't say that I'm going to stop living in Seattle, but I am going to come and visit you!"

"That's great, honey! …When?"

"Um, we're already on the road right now."

"We?" Nothing slid by Rebecka Nelson.

"I'm… um… bringing my girlfriend."

"Oh lord, son. Didn't I teach you to use protection?" says a gruff voice; it must be Remy's dad, Robert.

"What?" I exclaim, completely aghast at what Robert just said.

"Dad, Ana's not pregnant!" Remy quickly exclaims. "Do you guys actually want me to come for a visit, or would you prefer it if I only contacted you whenever I need something?"

"Oh, shush, you," Rebecka chides her husband in the background. "No, of course not, honey! You two are welcome to stay for as long as you'd like!"

"Just so long as there's no funny business going on under my roof," Robert said rather grumpily.

"Robert! Shush! You're going to make them want to stay at a hotel! But, um, Remy dear?"

"Yeah mom?"

"It's going to be a little cramped right now, because Claude is home right now."

"Joy," Remy said rather dryly. "We'll probably be in maybe before midnight, but you guys shouldn't wait up for us, alright? We can like crash on the couch or something." He ended the call and tossed his phone behind the seats. "I hope that you like other people's personal dramas, because you're about to be swept up in a massive one."

"What do you mean? Who's Claude?"

"Claudette; my sister. She's ten types of crazy, and three kids with some equally crazy guy. Every couple of months she's all 'oh, I can't take this any more' and she just leaves with the kids, but then the guy comes crawling back to her and she runs back to him and then the cycle repeats."

"Well, I think that I've had my fill of my own drama for a while."

"Hey, so that was startling how Christian just up and bought SIP, right? Like, you didn't know about that, either?"

"No. But the judge said that he only just bought it last week."

"And… you started working there last week, too, right?"

"Where are you going with this?"

"Don't you think that it's a bit of a coincidence that he bought the company that you got a job at in the same week?"

"Yes. But quite frankly, I'm honestly not all that surprised. This man's creepiness knows no bounds. Of course, if asked about the entire issue, he'll spout some pre-written bullroar about how he's always wanted to get into publishing, because of his love of books…" I rolled my eyes and made a yapping motion with my hand.

"The only reason why I brought this up is because if this man is willing to drop millions of dollars to purchase the company that his ex-girlfriend now works at, I can't imagine that he'd be stopped by any threat of fine if he breaks the restraining order."

I heaved a sigh and looked out of the window. There wasn't much to see right now besides trees, trees, and guess what? More trees! "I don't think that this is anywhere near being over."


	12. Chapter 12

We got into Yreka a couple of minutes after midnight. It seemed like the kind of town where everybody is in bed no later than 11, and we appeared to be the only people out and about. Remy easily navigated through a bunch of winding, old neighborhoods, before he backed into the side yard of a house. We got out, grabbed our bags from the bed of the truck, and walked up to the front door. Remy pulled a spare key out from under the welcome mat, and used it to let us inside.

"Remy," an older woman greeted us in a hushed whisper when we walked inside. "Shh, Aaron's asleep on the sofa. I tried to get him to settle down, but he and Isaac wouldn't stop fighting earlier, and Claude had to separate them just so that we could get some sleep."

"So, Isaac's in my old room, Claude and Rachel are in Claude's old room, and Aaron's on the sofa? Where are we supposed to sleep?"

"I'm sorry. We could go check into a hotel for the night," Rebecka said softly.

"Mom, no. You and dad shouldn't have to go check into a hotel in the middle of the night just because my sister can't get her shit together. We can sleep out in the truck or something. It's a nice-enough night for a camp-out in the yard, don't you think, Ana?"

"Um…" What was going on? I'd rather go to a hotel if Remy's sister and her kids were taking up the rest of the beds in the house.

"Oh, it would be just like when you and Claudette were little! Too bad that we don't have the sleeping bags anymore. Well, if we did, then we could just put you two up in the living room. Well, maybe you guys could sleep on the floor anyway?"

"Alright. But just for tonight. After that, I'm going to hurt Aaron and Isaac if they fight at night because sleeping on the floor hurts my back too much."

"I'll go get you two some blankets and pillows, then." Rebecka left, and Remy put our bags down on an armchair in the living room. It was dark, but I could just make out a small, sleeping figure stretched out on the sofa. I grabbed what I had packed to sleep in from my bag, and Remy showed me the bathroom where I could change.

When I came out from the bathroom, Remy was holding a large throw blanket and waiting for me. "Come on," he whispered as he grabbed my hand and started to pull me towards the kitchen.

"Where are we going? I thought that we were going to sleep in the living room?"

"Yes, but I don't want to have sex in front of my sister's kid, sleeping or not," Remy said as he opened the back door. "And besides, my father said that he didn't want any funny business going on under his roof."

"So, your solution is to have sex out in the yard? But, the neighbors might see us!"

"They're all asleep, so we'd better be extra quiet so that nobody gets the urge to look out their windows that overlook the yard!" The Nelson's backyard was large and spacious; perfect for playing catch on a sunny afternoon. There was a large oak tree in one corner of the yard, a small herb garden along the back fence, and a flower garden growing along the left fence. An old swing set took up most of the right side of the yard.

I followed Remy over to the tree, and he pushed me up against it and kissed me passionately. I wound my fingers into his hair, and responded eagerly to his kisses. This is what I needed right now; sexual release. Remy grabbed both of my wrists with his hand moved them so that they were over my head. "Don't move, okay?" he whispered, his lips inches from mine. I nodded in agreement.

Remy pulled away from me, shook out the blanket, and put it down on the ground. Then, he returned to me and pulled my top off. Since I had been planing to go to bed, I wasn't wearing a bra. Remy dropped my shirt onto the blanket, and then he pulled down my sleeping pants quickly so that they pooled around my ankles.

I stepped out of them, and Remy grabbed my hand and lead me to stand on the blanket. I lay down, and Remy lay next to me. He softly kissed me while his hands softly caressed my breasts. His skillful fingers pinched and rolled my nipples until they were hard, and then he slowly ran his tongue up both of them in turn. Then, he hooked his leg on top of mine and rolled us over until I was on top of him.

Remy was still wearing the button-down shirt he'd worn to court today, and I slowly started to undo the buttons. I started from the top and left kisses over every single inch of skin that I uncovered. When I reached the final button, Remy sat up and pulled the shirt off before he lay back down and undid his pants. I pushed both boxers and pants down until they were around his ankles, and he kicked both of them off.

"I need you," I whisper against his neck. "I need you right now." I pull my panties off, and I realize that we're both completely naked out in Remy's yard. Anybody could look out their window and see us right now. But, rather than the thought paralyzing me with fear, it instead only excites me further.

Remy pulls a condom out from the pocket of his pants, and rolls it on. He offers me his hand, and I climb onto his lap again. Remy adjusts his penis so that it's just barely inside of me, and I sink down onto it. I can't help the groan that bubbles from my lips at the contact.

"Shh, people will hear," Remy chides. He silences me with a deep kiss as I start to slowly move. Remy groans out loud, and I silence him with shush of my own, but I can't help but laugh at the absurdity of the entire situation.

Remy presses his mouth roughly into my shoulder as he comes, and I dig my fingers into his shoulders. I bite my lip to stop from screaming as I reach my own orgasm, and for a brief moment, in amongst the pleasure, I think that I taste blood. Remy pulls me off of him, and we quickly redress before we lie back on the blanket, wrapped in each others arms. I look up at the night sky, which is dotted with so many stars. Being in Seattle, I had forgotten just how many stars that there were.

"There's a shooting star," Remy whispered, and I watch it blaze across the sky for a split second. I try to think of something to wish for, but as I lay in Remy's arms, I realize that I feel as if my life is pretty damned perfect right now.

I was happy with Remy because he didn't force me to be something that I wasn't. He was happy with who I already was. And being in a relationship with him didn't mean signing contracts and NDAs.

After a while, it got a little chilly, so we picked up the blanket and went inside. Either Remy or Rebecka had made up a make-shift bed on the floor, opposite the couch where Aaron was sleeping. We got under the blankets, and I quickly fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning, I was properly introduced to Remy's family. Despite how grumpy that Robert had been on the phone yesterday, he was a pleasantly cheerful man who made me feel welcome in his house. Claudette was a tired-looking woman who looked like Remy, but she had mouse-brown hair. Her two boys, Aaron and Isaac, spent the entire duration of our family breakfast screaming at one another in Spanish. Claudette would occasionally snap at them, but for the most part, she just sat there and looked like a woman who'd had enough of everything.

"You should take Ana around to some of your old stomping grounds today," Rebecka said as she started to wash the dishes.

"Good idea. I want to show Ana the house, first." I got up to follow Remy from the kitchen, but Claudette trailed after us until we were in the hallway, and she stopped me.

"Ana, I don't think that you should be going anywhere with that giant hicky on your neck," she told me.

"What?" I gasped. Claudette rolled her eyes and dragged me upstairs and into a bathroom. I looked at my neck in the mirror; right at the junction of where my neck became my shoulder, there was a slight bruise forming. I blushed as I remembered how Remy had bit me there last night as he came.

"Here, let me help," Claudette said as she picked up a bottle of concealer. As she worked, I noticed a collection of yellowing bruises on her upper arm, right around where the sleeve of her shirt ended. Remy had said that Claudette and her husband had a lot of issues, but I hadn't really thought much of it. Did her husband hit her?

An unwelcome shiver of fear went down my back as I realized that Claudette could have been me in a few years if I had stayed with Christian. Yesterday might have been harassing emails and being roughly spanked, but if I had stayed with him, I probably would have ended up like Claudette. Bruised, living at home, rather uninterested in raising my children.

Claudette noticed what I was looking at and tugged her sleeve down. "It's not what you think; Raoul says that he's going to change."

I remembered that Michelle had told me during our first meeting that a lot of battered women made excuses, and the reason why so many women remained in abusive relationships was because they believed lie after lie that came from their abusers mouths. The cycle only ended when either the woman got so tired of the same cycle of abuse… or until her abuser finally went too far and killed her.

I didn't say anything, and I couldn't met her blue eyes, which were exactly the same as Remy's. Instead, I quickly left the bathroom, where Remy was waiting for me in the hall. He showed me his childhood bedroom, but it was hard to try and picture Remy as a child in the room when the floor was cluttered with small clothes and toys.

"Arg, those brats ripped up my posters," Remy growled as he lifted up a corner of a torn Metallica poster that hung on the wall. "Have I mentioned that I hate my sister's smarmy spawn?"

"I don't think that Rachel's that bad."

"No, but her biggest misfortune in life is the fact that she's sandwiched between spoiled by daddy 1 and spoiled by daddy 2!"

"Your sister had some bruises on her arm. Like, right here." I indicated on my own arm where they were on Claudette's. "You didn't mention that he hit her."

"No, because I didn't want to worry you if it didn't come up during our stay," Remy said quietly. "They were pretty faded, so I hope that he doesn't come here during our stay. I might have to kick him for hurting my sister again."

"I don't want you to get hurt, though," I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck and moved in closer to him. "And beating up her husband probably won't change Claude's mind about wanting to go back to him. She has to come to the conclusion on her own, and then she can finally start to move forward."

"I know," Remy said with a sigh. He rested his forehead against my neck. "I just don't want to see her in any pain. She's my big sister, and she always looked out for me when we were growing up. And now she's the one who's being bullied, and there's nothing that I can do. No matter how hard I punch him, she still goes back to him in the end."

"Although my situation with Christian never got that bad, I can say that sometimes, the best you can do from the sidelines is to pray that they'll make it through okay. I mean, Claude is an adult, and I'm sure that she's been told the signs of an abuser over and over."

"Well, enough talk about my screw-ball sister," Remy said. He kissed me lightly on the lips before he pulled away. "Want to see where I spent a lot of my time away from home?"

* * *

We drove by the high school that Remy went to. As we passed it, I couldn't help but think about Remy's high school sweetheart, Jessica. She and Claudette were both raised in Yreka, and they both ended up in some pretty horrible relationships. Of course, two women a pattern did not make, but it was enough for me to get suspicious.

"What are you thinking about?" Remy asked as we drove on from the school.

"Your old girlfriend, Jessica."

"Why? What about her?"

"I don't know. Seeing your school reminded me that you two started your relationship here. Being back here must bring back a lot of memories of her."

"Yeah, but maybe that's why I wanted you to come? Because I don't want all of my romantic memories of my home-town to be of Jess."

"She's not living here now, is she?"

"Um, no? Well, maybe, I don't know. Last I heard, she was still in Seattle. But she might have moved back after she graduated. I haven't exactly kept in touch with her." Remy pulled into a parking space down the main street of town, and we got out and started to walk down the sidewalk, hand-in-hand. "I used to spend a lot of hours here at this arcade before I started to date Jess. Wow, this place used to be the best pizza joint in town. I wonder when it closed? That's such a shame, because I'd been looking forward to taking you there."

"Remy?" a woman called from across the street. "Oh gosh, it is you!" She waited for a couple of cars to pass before she darted across. "I haven't seen you since you went off to college with Jessica! How are you?"

"I'm good, thanks. Sarah, this is my girlfriend, Ana. Ana, Sarah and I went to high school together."

"You and Jessica aren't together anymore?"

"No, we haven't been together for like three years now."

"Aw, that's such a shame. You know, Brent and Nicole got married last year."

"Um, yeah, I heard about it on facebook."

"You knew and that wasn't enough of an excuse for you to come back home again?"

"I didn't even hear about it until Nicole tagged a bunch of photos of my friends on facebook. And that was like a month later."

"Aw, too bad. It was great fun. Well anyway, I've got to go, but it was nice to run into you. Oh hey, you should go and see George; he works at his dad's shop now." Sarah left, and Remy and I continued to walk along the street.

"Truthfully, my mom did call me up to tell me about the wedding, but I thought that it would be too awkward to come back home just to attend a wedding without a date."

"There's no rule that says that you have to bring a date to a wedding."

"Yeah, but Jess and I… I don't know. It's complicated. People in this town are up into everybody's business, and when you're in a relationship for a while, people just sort of assume that you'll eventually get married." We turned the corner, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw a black Audi parked two spaces away from the corner. It was exactly like Christian's car.

Remy noticed both the car and my discomfort, and reassuringly rubbed my back. "Come on, Ana, breathe. It's not like that guy was the only one with that kind of a car." We got closer, and Remy lead me around the back of the car so that we could look at the plate, but it was only a temporary one. "See? It's from our local dealer. Probably belongs to Mr. Cooper, who practically owns half of the town. Or his overly-entitled son. But, whatever." It didn't exactly reassure me, because I knew that it would be easy for Christian to buy a new car once he had flown into town.

But, I didn't want to worry Remy, or to let thoughts of Christian ruin my vacation. I offered him a hesitant smile, and he dragged me across the street and into a little trinket shop. The inside was a bit hazy from the incense that was burning on the counter, but it looked like the kind of place where those insane nature-lovers would buy all of their healing crystals and hand-carved, wooden wind chimes.

"Remy, dude! I didn't know that you were in town!"

"Yeah, we just drove down from Seattle yesterday. Ana, this is George. George, Ana." They started to catch up, and I left Remy to look around the store a little. I wasn't overly interested in the things on display, but the cut geodes were pretty to look at.

I was looking over some hippie-dippie books (Finding your spirit Animal; Tai-Chi for Beginners; etc, etc), when somebody roughly grabbed me from behind. I yelped in surprise, but before I could elbow the creep who was now being overly fresh, a bag was thrown over my head.

"ANA!" I heard Remy yell, but he sounded much too far away for my tastes. The man roughly picked me up and he ran from the store; we must have left out the back of the store, because a minute later, we were outside. And then, I was thrown into the back of a car. I struggled against my captor as he roughly grabbed my hands and bound them with… was that a neck tie? What the hell?

Before I can process that I am being kidnapped by Christian Grey, he shoves me back into the car, and slams the door. A moment later, I feel the vibration of the car as it starts up, and I'm thrown around in the back as he zooms away.

* * *

Please let me know if you spotted any errors. Love you guys a lot! –Kitty


	13. Chapter 13

I know that I said this in an earlier chapter, but there will NOT be a rape scene. I tried to write the rape scene much earlier, but found that I was unable. I'm stating this now in case anybody is worried about this since this chapter might come off as being a little harsh.

The rape scene was substituted for Ana's and Kate's apartment being trashed instead.

* * *

We drove for hours, and barely even slowed down once we hit the highway out of town. I tried to remember which way that we turned once we started, because I heard that it could help people track where you went, but after the first couple of turns, I forgot which way we'd turned first. After a while, I got tired of sliding around on the overly-smooth leather seats, so I flopped down onto the floor where I wasn't tossed around so much.

For the most part, Christian was silent, except to yell at me whenever I started to whimper too loudly to be quiet. His harsh, barking yell let me know in an instant that it was him, and that this wasn't just some random act of violence or mistaken identity.

I am beyond horrified, and I have no idea what Christian is going to do to me. I don't know where he's taking me, and I'm not quite sure what's worse: being tied up and alone with him in a car with a bag over my head, or the fear of what might happen once we reach where ever we're going.

He seemed pretty angry yesterday, Logical Reasoning whispers. I'm afraid of what he'll do as soon as the car stops.

And almost as soon as Logical Reasoning thinks it, the car finally comes to a stop. I'm completely frozen with fear, and just lie on the floor helplessly. Christian grabs me and carries me somewhere. There's a strange rushing, roaring noise, and after a few seconds, I realize that it must be the ocean. After another second, the sound goes down a little, so Christian must have taken me inside, even though there wasn't a change in the light.

He took me up some stairs, and into a dark room that smelled slightly of… vanilla? What? Christian threw me roughly onto a bed, and before I could move, he grabbed my hands, which were still tied with some sort of silk tie, bound them to an iron post. Then, he pulled the bag off of my head.

The room that we were in was filled with candles, which was the only light source as far as I could tell. Every horizontal surface that wasn't covered with candles was covered with red rose petals, including the bed. Three out of the four walls were covered from floor to ceiling in mirrors, and the fourth wall, to my right, was covered from floor to ceiling in red velvet drapes. The post that I was tied to was actually part of the bed structure; four beautifully decorated iron posts that went nearly to the ceiling, and they were covered with gauzy, white fabric that floated down to the ground.

The entire effect of the room would have been exceptionally romantic…

…had Christian not forcibly kidnapped me and tied me up against my will. Not to mention the fact that he completely violated his restraining order.

Wow, dude, Logical Reasoning says with a roll of her eyes. He couldn't even spend an entire 24 hours without following me around? And anyway, how the fuck did he find us?

I thought back to the day before, and realized that Charlotte had mentioned Yreka yesterday to me after Christian and his lawyer had shown up. I thought that Christian hadn't been paying attention, but…

Or maybe he just fucking looked up where Remy was born, raised, went to high school, his bank account number… you know. Because he's a class-A creep! Logical Reasoning screamed at me. I couldn't help but think that she was right.

"Now that I've got your attention, Ms. Steele, we can finally sit down and talk this through like reasonable adults," Christian said coolly. He pulled up an antique chair that matched the decor of the room next to the bed and sat on it. His back was perfectly straight. I don't have anything to say to that, so I remain silent. "The first question that I would like to ask is why you decided to leave me."

I don't know how to respond to that. I mean, if I'm honest, he could hurt me, but if I word something poorly, Christian might take it the wrong way and think that I made a mistake in leaving him.

But, I apparently took too long to respond, and Christian roughly grabbed my chin. "Answer me, Ana, or else we'll be here for a very long time. I won't hurt you so long as your open with me. But, if you remain silent…" He gestured towards a large wardrobe that sat in the corner, and I could only imagine what was inside of it. Images of the row of canes and whips in the Red Room of Pain came to mind.

"First off, you have zero respect for me as a person, nor for my wants and needs. Your entire contract was all about you, and had little to do with what I might want from a relationship."

"Okay, well what about this, then?" Christian left the room, and came back a moment later with a copy of the contract. He then ripped it to pieces, and scattered them all over me, like weird rose petals. "No contract! Huh, how about that, then? Will you come back to me?"

"Ripping up the contract doesn't somehow make you a better person. You grossly invaded not only my privacy, Remy's privacy, but also Charlotte's and Adam's privacy as well."

"Anastasia, I told you that you are mine, and mine alone. I don't enjoy sharing you with others."

"That doesn't excuse your actions, Christian! Even before I met Remy, before you took me to Seattle, you tracked my phone and came to where I was!"

"You seemed more than happy to see me. And not just because I rescued you from a potential sexual assault."

"Saying that you saved me that night is a lot like saying that you stopped me from taking cocaine by offering to sell me heroin instead."

"I don't understand."

"I was very incredibly drunk, possibly to the point of where I might have had alcohol poisoning. Instead of taking me to the hospital after I passed out, or, you know, to my motherfucking home, you took me back to your hotel room. Where you proceeded to take my pants off and crawl into bed with me."

"Where else was I supposed to have slept?" The way that he said it made him seem so damned clueless; it was completely frustrating.

"Literally anywhere but in the same bed as a very drunk girl! You are quite literally a multi-billionaire and you couldn't have sprung a few hundred to check either of us into a separate room for one night? And the fact that you didn't is just so completely beyond creepy!"

"So, you would have preferred it if I had never shown up and stopped that molester from fondling you?"

"I can't honestly say that I would have preferred for Jose to kiss me against my will, but I also didn't exactly want to be dragged further into… whatever the fuck your issue is." I make the best sweeping gesture with my hand to indicate all of Christian, but the movement is a bit difficult. "It might have been a bit of a foolish, drunken mistake on my part to call you in the first place, but you were already starting to piss me off, even then!"

"I won't give you any more overly lavish and expensive presents. How about that? Is that good?"

"Have you not been listening to a word that I've been saying?" I snap at him. "Your presents are seriously the least of my concerns right now, Christian! It's the fact that you seem to have zero regard for anything that I want from a relationship!"

"You said that you wanted romance… hearts and flowers! Well…" Christian jumps to his feet and makes a wide, sweeping gesture to indicate the room that we're in.

"You followed me 500 miles and across three states, forcibly kidnapped me and took me to fuck-knows where, where you then proceeded to tie me up and force me to tell you why it is that I decided to leave you, but only under threat of violence! Gee, I don't know why I'm not completely swept off my feet already."

Christian stalked over to the wardrobe and threw the doors open. I flinched as I expected to see an array of violent-looking instrument, but then I gasped with horror, because inside was something much, much worse.

It was a beautiful wedding dress. I had zero experience with super nice clothing, and wedding attire was completely off my radar. But that dress looked like it was easily worth a million dollars. It was so exquisite, with tiny embroidered flowers that wound their way down the bust, and at the center of each flower, was a tiny diamond. The skirt was so full and had so much tulle, you could hide no less than three midgets under it.

WHAT.

THE.

FUCK! Logical Reasoning screamed as loud as she possibly could. Her jaw was quite literally on the ground, in a cartoonish vision to describe her shock.

"You are fucking insane!" I scream at Christian as I fight to free myself from the bed. At this point, broken wrists seems a lot better than staying for a moment longer in the company of a complete mad-man.

"The only thing that I'm crazy for is you, Anastasia!" Christian whispers. He's back at my side in a second, and then he grasps my chin in his hands once again. This time, I won't stand for him to touch me, and I move my head from side to side until he releases me. "I won't rest until you are mine. Forever."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I scream. "Somebody finally has the back-bone to finally tell you no, but rather than accepting it and moving on to somebody who actually wants you, you take it for 'I really mean yes!'?" Christian releases me and takes a step away from me; he looks like a kicked puppy.

"I don't like seeing you with that guy," Christian says. Okay, now he sounds like a small child who was just told that he couldn't have a cookie before dinner.

"Well, tough tits, Christian. We broke up, and that meant that I'm free to see other people."

"I saw you last night with him. Out in the yard. What makes him a better lover than me? Neither of you lasted very long last night." A retort about how Christian was also a peeping tom came to mind, but I bit my tongue because we had been out in the open.

"Remy is a very attentive lover. Unlike you, his main concern when we're together is if I'm enjoying myself. He doesn't force himself onto me, and he'd never want to have sex with me for his own sexual gratification."

"Anastaia…" Christian whispers. He kneels on the edge of the bed, at my feet. "Ana. Did you not enjoy yourself when you were with me? Did I not give you orgasm after orgasm?"

"Yes, but it always just seemed like an afterthought to your own needs."

"Ana, please! Give me another chance! I can change and I will be a more attentive lover to you!"

"Excuse me when I say that I don't believe you. That line is directly from the Abusive Boyfriend Handbook."

"Ana, I would never hurt you!"

"Except for, you know, how you wanted to base 90% of our relationship around you hurting me for your own sexual amusement. I am not that kind of person, and the only thing that I wanted from a relationship was somebody to read books with and to snuggle. You are contracts and whips. We aren't compatible and any relationship that we would have started would have only ended up with me in tears and you unsatisfied with my performance. It wouldn't have ended well at all!"

In response, Christian scooped up the pieces of the contract that he'd scattered all over the bed. "No contract, Ana! Okay, now what do you want from me?"

"For starters, you could untie me."

"If I untie you, then you'll just try to leave," Christian said quickly. I scowled at him.

"This is why I can't trust you, Christian. If I can't even get you untie me, how can I trust you in a romantic relationship?"

"Well, besides the entire tying you up thing, what else can I do for you?"

"I want you to stick to the restraining order and leave me alone."

"I can't do that."

"No, of course not. And that's why you decided to kidnap me because not only did you want to be fined for breaking the restraining order, but you also wanted to be arrested as well."

"Don't be silly, Anastasia. I won't be arrested."

"Not when you not only broke the restraining order, but also kidnapped me in front of two witnesses."

"I had been watching you for such a long time this morning; I was waiting for you to not only leave that broke artist's side, but also for you to go to somewhere where he couldn't see you. I knew that if I could only get you alone like this, then we could talk things through and make them work!"

"Christian!" I bark at him so harshly that he jumps in surprise at the sound of my voice. "I have been doing nothing but talking since you brought me up here! But you aren't listening to me! You are nothing but a psychopath and you have done nothing but violate my trust and my privacy since I met you! I think of myself as being a rather reasonable and trusting person, but you won't be getting a second chance from me. As soon as I'm found, I never want to see your face ever again."

"Anastasia, you have no idea what you'd be giving up! I could give you the world!"

"I don't want the world," I protest, but Christian goes on as if he didn't hear me.

"I could give you fancy cars, a beautiful house! Children! Do you want children, Ana?" Holy hell, no. And certainly not with Christian Grey. "You could be the CEO of SIP! Imagine yourself, on top of the world! How about horses! Do you like horses?" Christian goes on for a while as he lists all of the things that he could give me. I stopped listening, because he's obviously not listening to me. "Wait, I know! The reason why you haven't accepted my proposal is because I never gave you a ring! I'll go get it!"

Um, yeah. The reason why we haven't accepted is because of the ring, and not, you know, the TINY FACT THAT YOU'VE KIDNAPPED US AND TIED US UP! Logical Reasoning screams as Christian leaves the room again.

He comes back a moment later with a small ring box. He gets on one knee by the side of the bed. "Anastasia Rose Steele, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" He opens the ring box. It is a very large diamond set into a band of gold, and the band is encrusted with smaller diamonds.

"Christian, even if we hadn't broken up, I would never accept a ring like that. Honestly, you don't even know the first thing about me!" I snap at him. Christian gets to his feet, and looks rather crestfallen. But, it only lasts for a moment.

"Yes, you're right! It is completely over the top! I will go and buy you another ring! Right now!" Christian runs from the room, and a moment later, I hear the sound of his car roar to life. Great. Now he's gone, and I'm stuck here, tied to the bed.

I look around the room and I hope that none of the candles catch something on fire. I struggle to get free, but it's no use; Christian really knows his knots and the material of the ties are too sturdy. I realized with dismay that the tie Christian had used to put my hands together in the car was the same one that he'd used to tie me up the first morning that we'd been together. This guy had some serious issues.

* * *

It's hard to tell how much time has passed since Christian left because even if the room has windows, the drapes block out all of the light. Most of the candles have gone out by the time that I hear somebody in the house. I don't want to scream out in case it's Christian, so I wait with heavy anticipation until I know who it is.

A moment later, Christian comes into the room. "I'm sorry, babe, but it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I couldn't get you a ring, but I brought you some food." I was exceptionally hungry, but I wasn't going to give Christian the satisfaction of feeding me. Instead, I looked at a spot on the floor and didn't say anything.

I wondered why Christian couldn't get a ring. Was it because he couldn't find one that he thought was suitable for me, or was it because the police had frozen his bank accounts?

"Well, you're clearly not hungry right now, and I'm not going to force you to eat if you're not hungry. I'll just be in the next room, so shout if you get hungry." And then he left the room again. How completely frustrating! Why couldn't the police find this place already?

* * *

The room was dark when I was awoken from a light doze some time later. "Ana! Are you here?" a distant voice called out.

"IN HERE!" I screamed as loud as I could manage. I kept on yelling until the door opened, which flooded the room with light. I was exceptionally relieved to see that there were two officers in full SWAT gear. One fumbled for the light switch in the room while the other came to my side.

"Are you alright?" the officer asked as he cut the ties with a switchblade.

"I'm hungry, I've really got to pee, and my hands are both asleep, but he didn't physically hurt me," I said as I moved my wrists in a circular motion to get the blood flow back into them.

"We have Christian Grey in custody now; he won't be bothering you again," the officer said as he helped me up. We left the room and went downstairs, and for the first time, I saw the place where I'd been kept for the past several hours. Trust Christian to buy a mansion to hold somebody captive in. Most of the first floor was nothing but windows that looked out over the beach. It would have been pretty had the night not been filled with the flashing lights of police cars and an ambulance.

Once outside, an EMT starts to look me over, despite my protests that I'm fine. "He didn't physically hurt me. I just want to go home."

"Well, we'd all fell better if you spent the night at the hospital," the EMT told me.

"Alright." I didn't want to fight with anybody, let alone the EMT, who was just doing his job. I got into the back of the ambulance, and we pulled away from the house. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Longbeach." Holy hell; that was on the other side of California! No wonder the ride had seemed to take hours. Although, I was just grateful that we were still in California, and still in the United States. I didn't know much about rescue operations in Mexico, but something told me that it probably would have been a lot worse if Christian had taken me across the border.

The ride to the hospital was rather quick, and the EMT let me walk into the entrance of my own power, rather than insist that I ride on the gurney. "Annie!"

"Dad!" I'd never been so happy to see Ray before in my life. I ran into his arms, much like I had done when I was a little girl.

"Annie, I'm so glad that you're okay. The worst phone call that you can ever get is police from another state who tell you that your daughter's been kidnapped."

* * *

The sun was just starting to come up when Remy came into my hospital room. "Hey," he said in a hushed voice, since Ray was asleep on the visitor's chair.

"You look like hell."

"I've been through hell and back," Remy said as he ran a hand through his hair. I held my arms out, and Remy got into the narrow hospital bed with me and held me close. "You have no idea how horrifying it was to watch that guy put a bag over your head and take you from the store. I must have talked with the police for hours as they tried to piece together what had happened."

"How did they find me anyway? Nobody will tell me anything."

"They tracked Christian's most recent purchases to the house where they found you. Christian was a rather sneaky man, because he put all of the money to buy the house into your bank account, and then he bought the house under your name. It was a tricky move, since everybody was looking for purchases, not transactions. But, somebody caught it in the end, and since you didn't exactly have two million in the bank, obviously, that raised some red flags."

"I think that he overheard Charlotte and me talking about coming to Yreka at the courthouse the other day, so he followed us here."

"Yes. He flew into Siskiyou county airport, drove a rental car over to Yreka, where he then purchased the car that you saw a bit before… It was such a common car, though, but how were we supposed to have known that it was his? Ana, your intuition was completely spot on, even if it seemed rather ridiculous at the time."

"I tried to tell myself that I was being silly, because anybody could buy that kind of car. But now, I'll always feel jumpy."

"Christian's been arrested, and it's probably going to be a while before he gets out. So, you can rest easy." I closed my eyes and rested my head on Remy's chest and let the sound of his heartbeat lull me to sleep.

* * *

There's probably going to be one more chapter to wrap things up and then an epilogue. Thanks for reading! –Kitty


	14. Chapter 14

I was released from the hospital shortly after noon that day, and the police escorted Ray, Remy, and me straight to the doors of the airport. I wondered why, but as soon as we got into the terminal that we'd be leaving from, we were accosted by reporters.

"Ms. Steele!"

"Anastasia!"

"What was it like to be kidnapped by the Christian Grey?"

"Would you care to make a statement about your kidnapping?"

"What is your relationship with Mr. Grey?"

Holy hell; was my kidnapping really that interesting? "Stop harassing my daughter," Ray barked at the reporters as the police and airport security tried to keep them away from us. "She's been through more than enough without you people stalking her!" We were ushered through security without any hassle, and shown to the lounge where we would wait until the plane was ready for take-off.

* * *

It was pretty late by the time that we got into Yreka, but as soon as Robert's car pulled around the corner of the neighborhood, people popped up from seemingly nowhere and were trying to take pictures of us. "Damned paparazzi," Robert growled. "They've been camping out on our front lawn since yesterday afternoon, and the police won't do a damned thing about it."

"Why are they here? Do they think that you would somehow know what might have happened to me?" I asked with a frown.

"They wanted somebody to cry on camera for some sad background story on you. You know, in case things went bad," Remy explained. "We told them to leave, and dad turned on the sprinklers when they didn't." Robert pulled into the garage and almost hit three reporters doing so. But, they didn't attempt to come into the garage; they only just stood outside and continued to take pictures of us as we got out of the car.

"Ms. Steele! How are you?"

"Would you like to make a comment on what it was like to be kidnapped by Christian Grey?" We ignored them and went inside the kitchen, where I sagged against Remy in complete relief.

"Don't worry about the reporters, dear," Rebecka said as she offered me a big slice of chocolate cake. "They respect our privacy in the house and haven't tried to take pictures through the windows."

"I'm just tired and I want to go home."

"We are home," Remy whispered against my temple.

"I meant to Seattle. I know that Kate's parents probably haven't found us a place yet, but I just want to leave California."

"Okay. We can set out first thing in the-"

"No, I want to leave now," I said and I give Remy a firm look that leaves little room for misunderstanding.

"Oh," Remy says; he understands my meaning at once. "Oh. Mom, I think that Ana and I will just head back for Seattle now instead of staying the night."

"But it's so late," Rebecka says softly.

"We'll check into a hotel room if we get too tired to go on. Ana just wants to be back in Seattle now."

"Are you sure? You are welcome to stay for as long as you'd like, honey," Rebecka whispers to me.

"Thank you, but I think that getting back into my routine would be best for me right now."

And fifteen minutes later, Remy tossed our bags into the back of his truck and we begin to fight our way away from the house. The reports make it difficult to do so. "Hey, jerkwads! I have no problems with running any of you over!" Remy yells at them from out the window. I'm wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap so that they can't get a good shot of my face, but it's obvious who I am, regardless.

But eventually, we get free and soon, we're on the highway that we took only 24 hours earlier to get down to Yreka. Remy floors the trunk until we're in Oregon, and then he slows down a little after we pass the sign that welcomes us into the state.

I fiddle with the nob on the radio for a good fifteen minutes before I give up and turn it off. Nothing seems very appealing to me right now. We drive on in silence.

Remy kept driving until it was just about midnight, and then he pulled into the parking lot of a grungy-looking motel. The only other thing around as far as I could tell was a Subway that was attached to a gas station across the street from the motel.

"Hey, aren't you the girl on the news?" the middle-aged clerk asked when we finally got his attention by ringing the bell on the front counter for about five minutes straight.

"What girl?" I said quickly. Crap; if this guy called the press, this place would be swarming with reporters by the time we left.

"I don't know. Some chick down in Long Beach was kidnapped by some hot-shot billionaire guy after he apparently went completely coo-coo for cocoa puffs. Nah, never mind. You couldn't be her. Sorry." He handed us a room key, and we went outside to move the truck closer to our room.

I moved closer to Remy when we got into the room, and he looked to me. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. I just really need you right now." Remy silently put his bag on the only chair in the room, and turned the light on so that he could dig through it. I shut the door and put my bag in front of where the TV was. Remy pulled out a condom from his bag, and then he turned the light off again. He pulled me into his arms, and kissed me with passion and longing.

I pushed my hands up the sides of his t-shirt and ran my hands up his back, to his shoulders. He pulled back away from me and looked me in the eye. "Are you sure? I don't want to push you into doing something that you don't want to do."

"Yes," I replied, and captured his lips again. Remy pulled away from me again and I pulled his shirt off. He then pulled my skirt up a little and picked me up by the back of my legs. I wrapped my legs around his hips and groaned as his erection pressed up against my vagina. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him, and he walked us over to the bed, where he lay me down on my back.

I release my hold of him, and Remy starts to leave a trail of wet kisses down my neck, until he gets to the top of my blouse. "Did you change into this on purpose?"

"Hm, maybe…" I say and offer him a coy smile. He casually flicks open the first button on my top, and then he pulls the fabric apart further so that he can kiss the skin that he just uncovered. He hasn't shaved in a couple of days, and each scrape of his stubble against my breasts is completely agonizing, even though they're mostly covered.

He continues on at a frustratingly slow pace until he finally comes to the top of my skirt. He pulls away from me and I'm sure that he's going to pull me into a sitting positions so that he can take my top off, but then he instead goes down and pulls my panties off without removing my skirt. He pushes my skirt up until it's bunched up around my waist, and then he bends over and kisses my inner thigh; first on the right, and then then left. He lingers for a moment on the left leg to run his cheek up my leg a little, and I gasp with how arousing that the sensation is.

And then his tongue gingerly touches my clitoris, and I gasp louder with the contact. Encouraged by my obvious approval, Remy runs his tongue over my clit a few more times, but applied more pressure with each passing lick. He then slid a finger inside of my dripping vagina, and started to lightly tap on my clit with just the tip of his tongue. His finger curled up inside of me, went straight, came out, went back in, curled up again…

I fisted the comforter tightly in my hands in order to have something to ground me as I came. I screamed Remy's name as I did, but he didn't pause his licking until I had stopped shaking. As I struggled to catch my breath after that, Remy ran his tongue up my clit again, and I started to shake again as another orgasm ripped through me. This one wasn't nearly as intense as the first one had been, but it was still nice. Remy repeated his motion again, and I came a third time, although this one was tame in comparison to the first two.

Then, Remy lay down on the bed next to me. "Holy crap; I didn't even know that I could even have that many orgasms at once!"

"It's all about timing and knowing your body well," Remy said. I leaned over and kissed him; the kiss was even more erotic than usual because I could taste myself on his lips and tongue. I rolled over and then sat on top of Remy's lap. He reached up and pushed my blouse off my shoulders, and then he pulled my bra off.

I put my hands on his chest and started to slowly move my hips around in a circle on top of his erection. Remy put his thumb over my clit and let the movement of my hips do the work for him. After a moment of this, however, I realized that the zip of his jeans was getting all wet from my vagina, so I climbed off from him and undid them.

Remy grabbed the condom from his pocket before he pulled his pants and boxers off. I ripped the condom packet open and rolled it onto his penis. Then, I hooked my leg over his and rolled us over so that we were both lying on our sides. I moved closer to him and he slowly pushed inside of me.

The positions was a little bit awkward and didn't exactly allow for any quick movements, but that was perfectly alright with us. Remy kissed my forehead, both of my eyelids, the tip of my nose, and then he trailed kisses down my jaw in time to our lovemaking.

After we had finished, we cocooned ourselves up in the comforter on the bed and lay in each others arms. "Remy, do you find yourself to be an adequate lover?"

"Do you find me to be an adequate lover?"

"Yes."

"Then your opinion is the only thing that really matters to me. Where is this coming from, sweetie? Did the creep say something to you about me?"

"He said that he watched us the other night. When we were in your parents backyard. He said that we came really quickly."

"I thought that you were satisfied then?"

"I was!" I whisper quickly. "And it was oddly erotic to do that where anybody could just happen to see us. Unfortunately, because of events, I don't think that I want to do it again."

"Alright." Remy kissed my forehead. "We should probably get some rest so that we can head out as early as we can."

"It is early."

"I meant, after some rest," Remy said with a roll of his eyes. We both laughed a little at that.

* * *

The next morning, once we get into Seattle, I tell Remy to take us directly to the Kavanagh's house. "Ana!" Kate exclaims as soon as she opens the door. She grabs me in a giant hug and practically drags me inside. "I was so worried! And nobody even bothered to tell me what had happened! I had to hear about it on the news! On the news, Ana!"

"Well, I actually told her about the breaking news story," Ethan said. "But, yeah. It was very horrifying to hear that somebody that you know very well has been kidnapped, and on the news, to boot. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I insist.

"Have you seen the news stories?" Kate asked.

"No. First, I was in the hospital, and then I was traveling for most of yesterday."

"Christian's empire is slowly starting to unravel," Kate went on as she dragged me into the family room, where the massive entertainment center was set up. "As the forensic accountants look into Christian's finances, they're saying that if all of the businesses that Christian has been supporting go belly up, it could mean the economic collapse of Seattle."

"Holy shit, are you serious? I knew that he had his fingers in a lot of pies, but for all of Seattle to completely collapse like that?"

"The government is trying to do what it can to make sure that it doesn't happen though," Ethan is quick to reassure us.

"Well anyway, we missed some of the breaking stories right when Christian snatched you, but we've recorded most everything else," Kate said as she flipped through the TV recorder.

"Oh, come on, Kate, she doesn't need to see everything. I mean, I'm sure that a lot of that is nothing but pure speculation," Ethan said with a roll of his eyes. "Just show her the part with those two morons."

"Alright," Kate said. I sat on the sofa next to Remy, who put his arm around my shoulder. Kate found the recording that she wanted to show me, and then sat down next to me, with Ethan on her other side.

"In an added twist to the Christian Grey saga that has been unfolding since Tuesday afternoon, we have reports from two men who claim that Christian Grey hired them to break into the apartment of Anastasia Steele and her friend. They reportedly turned themselves in earlier today, and are cooperating fully with the police in exchange for a reduced sentence. From what our sources say, the men report that Grey hired them to quote 'break into Steele's apartment and to throw some things around'. They also said 'Grey was very strict in telling us that we were to destroy and not to destroy. All of Steele's clothes, Steele's bed, a painting that Grey described in great detail, as well as the couch. But nothing else. Grey also asked us to take a large black and white picture of Steele, if we could find it. And we did, so we brought it to Grey after we had finished the job.'"

"This is all very troubling news, isn't it, Jackie?" the male anchor on the show said as the show when back to the two anchors as they sat at the news desk. "What do you think that all of this means for Anastasia?"

"It's hard to say for sure, but I think that this is seriously just the beginning. For all parties involved. And now for sports!" The video cut off.

"You were right, Ana," Kate said softly. "I just didn't know that everything would come to light so quickly."

"I don't even know if I'm supposed to do anything or not," I said. I laced my fingers together and looked down at my hands. "The only information that I've got about what happened to me is from Remy and you. The police haven't told me anything."

"Do you think that you'll have to testify against Christian?" Ethan asked.

"I'm sure that she won't. I mean, they caught Christian holding Ana hostage, and they have all of his financial records to prove about how he bought the house and everything," Kate said quickly.

"I suppose that we'll find out sooner or later, right?" Remy said. "I mean, if they need Ana to make a statement or even to testify against Christian, the police will contact her."

"In the meantime, let's not talk about this okay?" I said quietly. "Did you find a place for us to stay?"

"Actually, I did, but we have to wait three more days in order to move in. You're really going to love this place, Ana, I'm sure of it!"

* * *

It didn't take long for the police to get in contact with me at all. I walked into work on Thursday morning, and tried to act super casual about it. Too bad that it didn't work. "Oh, Ana, there's some police officers here to see you. They're up in Mr. Roach's office right now. Mr. Roach wasn't sure if you'd come in today or not, but I'll just phone him to let him know that you're here now," Claire, the receptionist, said. She picked up the phone and briefly spoke with Mr. Roach. "Alright. Mr. Roach wants to talk with you. Just go on up." She gave me a reassuring smile as I left to get on the elevator.

I'd never been up to the top floor of the building, which was Mr. Roach's office. Inside, there were two plain-clothed officers who were sitting in the guest chairs in front of Mr. Roach's desk. "Ms. Steele," Mr. Roach said as soon as I came into his office. "I hadn't been expecting you here so soon after what happened." He ushered me to a third chair in front of his desk.

"I'm trying to keep myself busy so that I can forget," I told them honestly. "What is this about?" If the officers had wanted my statement, they could have found me at the Kavanagh's house or contacted me through Remy.

"Well, as I'm sure that you are aware, Ms. Steele, Mr. Grey transfered a large amount of money into your personal bank account, which he then used to purchase many things," one officer told me.

"Yes," I said carefully.

"Well, this one wasn't caught at first because it wasn't a monetary transaction, but rather, a legal one," the officer continued. "Last week, Mr. Grey purchased Seattle Independent Publishing for quite a large amount of money. But on Sunday evening, when Mr. Grey was in your bank account, amongst other invasive actions to your financial person, he also signed over the legal ownership of SIP to you, Ms. Steele."

"What?" I'm completely flabbergasted by this. "Why would he just give me the company?"

"Your guess is probably as good as any of ours, Ms. Steele," said Mr. Roach. "The only question being: what do you plan to do with the company now that it's yours?"

"I think that we're just about finished here," said one of the police officers. "What you guys do with your business is up to you and your company lawyers." They got up to leave.

"Hold on, wait a second," I said. "I'm just curious on if I'm going to have to testify against Christian."

"We're doing the best that we can do right now so that you don't have to do that," said one officer. "We have more than enough evidence against Mr. Grey so that you don't have to deal with the stress of facing him in court."

"Okay. But what about the money in my bank account? There's still like fifty thousand more than there should be. And the house!" The two officers exchanged a look and the shrugged.

"We honestly don't know," one finally told me. "Most of Mr. Grey's assets have already been seized by the bank, but since the house, the car, the wedding dress, and the engagement ring were all purchased under your name…" He shrugged again. "We will let you know, and if you like, we can keep you up to speed on the investigation."

"The parts that they don't tell you about on the news," the other officer said.

"I would like that, yes."

"Well, here's my card, so if you need anything, please don't hesitate to call." One of the officers handed me a business card. "We'll be in touch." And then they left. I turned my attention back to Mr. Roach.

"So, Ms. Steele. How would you feel about becoming business partners?"

* * *

Thank you for reading! Please let me know if there's anything that needs to be grammatically fixed. There will be one last chapter and then this will be finished.

Much love, Kitty


	15. Epilogue

One year later…

Remy and I strolled out from the British Museum hand-in-hand. "You know, I wasn't so sure about you and money, but I'm glad that you decided to keep most of it," Remy said. "I think that I've become rather spoiled staying in luxurious hotel rooms."

"Yeah, me too. Well, I gave away most of the money that Christian left in my bank account, as well as the money from the sale of the things that he bought. It gave me a bad feeling. The money that we're burning on this well-deserved vacation is all thanks to my partnership with Jerry Roach at SIP."

"Well, we should-" Remy trailed off as his phone chirped with a new message. He pulled away from me for a moment so that he could look at it. "It's from Charlotte."

"What's she say?"

"'One year ago today, my little Remy went off on his first date with Ana.'"

"Wow, has it really been a year already?"

"Hm…" Remy paused to think about it. "Yeah, I guess it has been. So much has happened since then, though, and it just sort of slipped my mind."

"From a coincidental meeting at a used book store to a coffee date that ended with us talking to the police… And then my kidnapping, my new job…"

"All of my art shows…"

"We've really got a lot to celebrate!" I exclaimed. I hailed a taxi, and told the driver the hotel that we were staying at.

"Should we pick up a bottle of wine before we get back?"

"Nah, I've got a better idea to celebrate…" I threw him a flirty wink, and he offered me a huge smile. The taxi pulled up in front of our hotel, I paid the driver, and we got out.

"Hey, Ana, do you think that we should get married?" Remy said rather abruptly. I stopped and gave him an open-mouthed stared.

"Remy Nelson, are you proposing to me?"

"Noooo…" Remy said carefully.

"Oh."

"I'm only asking because we've been together for a year now, and we're both in love with one another."

"Madly in love," I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"Yes, hopelessly, madly in love," Remy said and he lightly kissed me. "And I just thought that, you know… maybe it would be nice if we could get married. Or something. I don't know. Whatever."

"It's a really good thing that that wasn't an actual proposal, because that was seriously the worst one ever," I said with a laugh. I pulled away from him and dragged him over to the elevators.

"Well, relationships work best when the couple is open and honest with one another. It's not just about the needs of one person, and maybe they happen to coincide with what the other one wants sometimes, too." I knew that he was talking about my relationship with Christian.

You know, before he went crazy and ended up in an asylum for the criminally insane.

I tried not to think about his upcoming release (three months and… holy crap, when did it get to be the 25th?!) and instead focused my attention on my new job, my friends, and, of course, Remy.

"I think that maybe we should get married," I said once the elevator started to take us to our floor. "But, we've got to do it properly. I want a ring, a super romantic proposal with you on bended knee… the whole nine yards."

"Alright. I can do the nine yards. Do you want to shop for a ring while we're in London or should we wait until we get back?"

"Hm, let me think about that and get back to you," I said as the elevator doors slid open on our floor. "After all, we've got to celebrate our one year anniversary."

* * *

I just wanted to thank everybody for reading my lovely POS story.

I probably won't post anything else in this fandom... um... ever... (and I think that most people know why, and it has nothing to do with this story) but if our paths happen to cross again in the future, then be sure to say hi.

Love ya lots! Kitty


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